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THE INTERPRETER 




PHYLLIS BOTTOME 

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LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 

91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 
LONDON AND BOMBAY 


1902 








THE LISPAffY OF 
COMGRE88, 
T'wn Cowfert- Reobiveo 


SEP. 13 1902 



Copyright, 1902, 

BY 

LONGMANS, GREEN & CO, 


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ROBERT DRUMMOND, PRINTER, NEW YORK 



LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 




CHAPTER I 

^^To have what we want is riches; but to be able to 
do without it is power/' 

‘‘But the extraordinary thing is that it 
has happened!” The lady who seemed a 
victim of this surprise lay back in her luxu- 
rious chair and exhibited a small foot on 
the fender. 

“Black velvet slippers,” said her com- 
panion critically, “on a brass fender are 
really, my dear, a poem. Where do you 
learn these things? Poor Muriel, her feet 
were always rather large!” 

“She had everything in her favor,” said 
Mrs. le Mentier, the first speaker. “ Money, 
position, a face and figure one could do a 
good deal with. She was simply ruined by 
1 


2 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

her earnestness. I have often said to her, 
‘Well, Muriel, why don’t you take up the 
Church? But she never did; she said it 
was too comfortable and that it would 
crush her. I ’m sure she’s not too comfort- 
able now!” 

Mrs. Huntly rose and went to the window. 
It was raining dismally, with a constant re- 
iterated drip, drip on the tiles. She turned 
back, shivering a little, to the cosey boudoir 
of her friend with whom she had just been 
lunching. 

“I often wonder,” she said thoughtfully, 
“if it wasn’t Jack Hurstly after all. You 
know I had them last summer with me; and 
though poor Muriel always managed things 

very well, there were times And then 

he went off suddenly, you know; and she 
said she couldn’t imagine what I could see 
in him, though I know for certain she bore 
with that brutal bull-terrier of his, and pre- 
tended to like it, while all the time she 
loathed animals — dogs especially.” 

“Ah!” said Mrs. le Mentier; “and she’s 
really dropped out — one can’t do anything! 
All the time when she isn’t actually at that 
tiresome Stepney club of hers she’s con- 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


3 


triving things for it — positively it amounts 
to a terror! She asked me last week to sing 
at a smoking concert for some factory 
hands. I told her I thought smoking con- 
certs for those kind of people were simply 
immoral, and she actually flamed up and 
cried, ‘You sing for Captain Hurstly and 
his do-nothing friends, who can afford to 
amuse themselves, and you won’t sing for 
men whose daily life is a hell, and whose 
only amusements are unspeakably degrad- 
ing!’ Of course I stopped her at once. I 
told her she should give them Bible lessons. 
She saw how silly she had been then, and 
laughed in that dear old way of hers, 
and said, ‘You always had such a lot 
of common sense, Edith! But you see 
she must be dropped. She’ll begin to 
talk about her soul next!” Her friend 
yawned. 

“Well, my dear,” she said, “don’t you 
get earnest too. That wretched Madame 
Veune is coming to fit me at three o’clock, 
so I must be off. Oh, by-the-bye, if Muriel 
should turn up to-morrow you might ask 
her to come and see me — I don’t know her 
slum address — one must do what one can, 


4 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


you know. Good-bye, dear.” And the 
two affectionately kissed and parted. 

Mrs. Huntly frowned as she drove home. 
Muriel Dallerton had been an old friend of 
hers, and she really meant to do what she 
could for her. 


CHAPTER II 

^^The sky is not less blue because the blind man can- 
not see it” 

Muriel Dallerton knelt on the floor of a 
small lodging-house room by the fire. It 
was with evident difficulty that she could 
make it burn at all, for the soot kept rolling 
down and the chimney threatened to smoke. 
She had not yet accustomed herself to black 
hands every time she touched the shovel. 

The worst of it was she expected her 
uncle and guardian to tea, and she had to 
confess to herself that the prospect was not 
pleasing. 

She had lived with her uncle ever since 
she had been an orphan at six years of age, 
and she had been sent to an expensive 
boarding-school and been finished in Paris. 
After three triumphant London seasons, 
every moment of which she had lived 
through with the same earnest delight that 
5 


6 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


was one of her most striking characteristics, 
she had come to the conclusion that in some 
way or other she was wasting her life. 

She had for a whole year tried every way 
of doing good that was compatible with a 
house full of servants, a stable full of horses, 
and a social position. But at every turn 
she met with opposition — this, that, the 
other was “not nice” — not “the proper 
thing” — the horses couldn’t go out — what 
would the servants think — she was upset- 
ting the whole house — people would begin 
to talk. She confessed herself lamentably 
deficient in the sense of what was the 
proper thing, and on her own side she felt 
she could no longer bear the strain of the 
double life. 

She was needed all day at the club. She 
had organized games, classes, recitations, 
employments and entertainments for men, 
women and children, and all needed her 
personal supervision. 

It was not that she was not fond of 
pleasure — she had immense capacities for 
enjo5anent. She was known by all her ac- 
quaintances as that “radiant Miss Daller- 
ton” — only to live for pleasure that was 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


7 


different, and little by little she found her- 
self “dropped out.” 

Society is very exacting: it demands the 
whole heart and constant attendance at 
its haunts, so that when Muriel Dallerton 
finally announced her intention of going to 
live in a model tenement next to her club 
society was careful to make plain to her 
that reluctantly, and with all due respect 
for her ten thousand a year, until she re- 
turned to her senses and her west-end 
house, society must pass her by on the 
other side. Her uncle. Sir Arthur Daller- 
ton, felt deeply what was generally termed 
her “extraordinary attitude” — it cast a re- 
flection upon him. He missed her gracious 
household ways, the little attentions with 
which she had surrounded him. He had, 
it is true, neglected her atrociously; but up 
till now she had always, as he framed it, 
“done her duty by him.” Her living away 
from him was a positive slur. 

Sir Arthur Dallerton was coming this 
afternoon to shake her resolution, and he 
had no doubt whatever of his success. 

Muriel tussled with the fire, which finally 
consented to burn, then she rose to her feet, 


8 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


brought out some tea-things, and began to 
toast a muffin. 

A bunch of daffodils in a cracked vase did 
much to improve the appearance of the 
room; a touch here and there finished it; 
and she had scarcely taken off her outdoor 
things and washed her hands (very unused 
to the work they had been put to) when a 
dismal slavey announced, “A genelman to 
see yer, miss,” and backed almost on to the 
gentleman in question, who with an ex- 
clamation of disgust pushed past her into 
the room. 

“My dear Muriel,” he said, “this is dis- 
graceful!” He paused as she ran forward 
to meet and relieve him of his hat and 
umbrella. She looked up at him, her face 
beaming with smiles. 

“Dear,” she laughed, “did the black- 
beetle quite crush you? How horrid! But 
now you’ll sit down here and have some 
tea. You needn’t insult that chair by 
doubting it. It will bear anything I know 
— I saw the landlady sit on it, and nothing 
happened!” 

Her uncle sat down gingerly. “Were 
those people,” he said coldly, “down in 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


9 


what I can only call a yard — a yard, Mu- 
riel! — the people you imagine you have a 
mission amongst? ” 

Muriel poured out the tea. “They look 
as if they needed it, don’t they, dear ? ” she 
said, handing him a cup. “There, you’ve 
got a whole handle, and only two chips 
round the rim! Yes, those were some of 
my people. I hope they weren’t in your 
way? ” 

“They are extremely in my way, Muriel 
— extremely; I may say I am greatly incon- 
venienced by them. I suppose you realize 
that I am alone in the world; and yet you 
seem to imagine that your duty is to be 
among these unpleasant characters in filthy 
slums instead of at home looking after my 
comfort.” 

Muriel smiled a little to herself as she 
thought of the array of servants the great 
house held, of the friends and cronies at the 
club, where he spent the greater part of his 
time. “His comfort!” — surely there were 
enough people in the world already looking 
after that. 

“Uncle Arthur,” she said, “we’ve talked 
all this out before, haven’t we? We don’t 


10 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


see it quite in the same light. I am very 
sorry you are not comfortable. If the ser- 
vants ” 

“Muriel,” he interrupted in a raised 
voice, “how dare you mention servants to 
me! Do you imagine that when I refer to 
comfort I mean personal attendance? You 
have never had any heart ! Mine has always 
been an essentially affectionate nature. It 
is domestic companionship that I desire; 
and now that you are of an age to be of 
some comfort to me, you fly off to — 
Heaven knows where! — and throw me back 
on the servants!” 

Muriel sighed gently and laid her hand 
on his. “ Dear uncle, you have always been 
so good to me. But you see you weren’t 
always at home, and a girl nowadays isn’t 
satisfied simply in being domestic.” 

“I should scarcely have imagined you, 
my niece Muriel, accusing me of neglect! 
You invariably lose your temper upon these 
subjects, which proves that you feel yourself 
to be in the wrong. Y ou know perfectly well 
that you can have any woman you want 
to live with you as lady companion, but 
you’re so independent and obstinate ’’ 


MFE, THE INTERPRETER 


11 


“That no one would live with me if you 
asked them/’ she finished merrily. “Ah! — 
but please don’t talk about this any more/’ 
she pleaded as he strove to begin again. 
“We shall never agree! I must have my 
work to do. I cannot be happy without it, 
and I cannot do it at home. But I only ask 
for nine months of it. It is April now, and 
in July you shall have me back for three 
whole months, and do just what you like, 
dear. Isn’t that a splendid bargain? ” 

The tea was very nice, and the buttered 
muffins especially were done to a turn. 

Sir Arthur Dallerton crossed his legs and 
leaned back in his chair (forgetful of its 
former occupant). “My dear,” he said 
mildly, “what will people say? Have you 
ever thought of that? ” 

“Yes, dear uncle,” said Muriel, smiling; 
“I have thought of it, and I have come to 
the conclusion that I had better not think 
about it any more. Won’t you have some 
more muffin? ” 

Sir Arthur Dallerton graciously accepted 
another piece. It did not occur to him 
that Muriel had eaten nothing — those sort 
of things never did occur to him. If it 


12 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


had done so he would have put it down 
to hysteria — the one great refuge for the 
selfish. 

“Mrs. le Mentier/’ he pursued, “who is a 
very sensible woman, told me what people 
were saying, and I think you ought to know 
of it too.” 

Muriel rose and looked out of the window. 
It was still raining heavily. 

“Well?” she said a little wearily. 

“They say this is a mere whim of yours 
to bring Jack Hurstly to book.” 

The girl by the window stood quite still. 
She did not see the children in the yard 
below playing cheerfully in the gutter; she 
did not even notice one of her most hopeful 
cases reel across the court in a condition 
which would have filled her soul with pity 
and disgust two minutes before. Her uncle 
thought her cold and indifferent, or possibly 
sullen. 

“Yes!” he said bitterly, “that is the sort 
of thing, Muriel, that your conduct forces 
me to put up with.” Muriel faced him 
suddenly. 

“Mrs. le Mentier,” she said quietly, 
“is ” she paused, “is very much mis- 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 13 

taken if she thinks such absurd rumors 
have power to affect me; and I do not think 
you need be put out by what she says, for 
nobody who knows either Captain Hurstly 
or myself would believe her.” Her uncle 
rose to his feet. 

“You seem to be in a very bad temper, 
Muriel,” he said. “ I knew what would be 
the result of your taking up this work. But 
it’s very depressing to me. I shall go home 
— when you come to a proper frame of 
mind, let me know.” She ran forward and 
kissed him. 

“But you do love me, don’t you?” she 
whispered. 

“Of course, Muriel, if you would only 
give up yoiir absurd whim.” She drew 
back a little. 

“Mind the stairs,” she laughed; “and oh, 
whatever you do, don’t tread on the black- 
beetle.” She watched him cross the yard, 
and bowl off in a hansom. Somehow she 
felt very forlorn and lonely all by herself. 
She was startled to feel a tear-drop on her 
hand. “Nonsense!” she said; “it’s time 
for the girls’ cooking class ! ” She gave her- 
self a little shake and put on her things. 


14 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

She found herself saying as she left the 
room, ‘‘If Jack thinks so I’ll never, never 
speak to him again.” She was a little im- 
patient at the cooking class. 



ii 




CHAPTER III 


'^And custom lies upon thee with a weight: heavy as 
frost, and deep almost as life/^ 

“You are quite right in thinking I care 
for her, Mrs. Huntly, and have done ever 
since I knew her,” said Jack Hurstly, look- 
ing hard at an inoffensive poker. '‘But 
there’s no doing anything with her. I am 
not earnest enough, it seems. She objects 
to my club, my sport, and all my set. I be- 
lieve she even objects to my regiment. At 
any rate she thinks I am wasting my time 
here in England, and ought to be sweating 
in some beastly tropics — Heaven knows 
why!” 

"So you ought. Jack, so you ought,” said 
Mrs. Huntly soothingly. "Muriel is quite 
right. It’s positively shameful the lives our 
society young men lead. A horse, a gun, a 
club and a dress-suit, what a catalogue of 
occupations ! Can you increase it? ” 

"Oh, well,” said her companion rather 
15 


16 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


sheepishly, “I’m no worse than the other 
fellows, am I, Mrs. Huntly? ” 

“My dear Jack, she’s not going to marry 
the ‘other fellows,’ is she? You had better 
leave them out of the question; and if 
your ambition is to be no worse than they 
are you had better dispense with Muriel. 
Go off and hunt somewhere, and then 
come back and marry a girl of your own 
sort.” 

The door opened. “Miss Dallerton” the 
butler announced. Muriel came forward 
into the middle of the room. There was 
such a warm, gracious dignity about her 
that people who had little to recommend 
them but the external felt thin in her pres- 
ence. Mrs. Huntly greeted her warmly. 
Jack said very little, but as his eyes rested 
on her Mrs. Huntly thought that the hunt- 
ing expedition, if it ever came off, must be a 
long one. 

“I’m so glad, so glad to see you both,” 
cried Muriel joyously, “particularly as you 
are neither of you going to ask me for soup 
tickets ! Dearest Mary, are you really well? 
And what a comfort it is to see a pretty 
dress! And won’t you please both tell me 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 17 

all about everybody, and who has married 
who, though they ought to have done 
better? I feel so ignorant.” She sat down 
by Mary Huntly, caressing her hand, and 
looking with glad eyes from one to the 
other like a child out for a holiday. 

‘‘Oh, my dear girl,” cried Mrs. Huntly 
mournfully, “to think that you are out of 
it all! It almost breaks my heart!” 

“Mary, how dare you! I came to be 
pacified, and if I’m reproached I shall 
simply turn tail and run away! You don’t 
reproach me, do you. Captain Hurstly?” 

“ Perhaps I should like to, if you gave me 
time,” he said, smiling. 

“Oh, but I won’t, not for any such pur- 
pose — you shan’t have a moment of it. But 
who is this?” A young girl had entered 
the room; she was dangerously pretty (it 
is the only adjective one can use), and 
she was perfectly self-possessed. Mrs. 
Huntly introduced her to them. She 
was a young cousin of hers, Gladys 
Travers. 

Imperceptibly the atmosphere changed. 
Mrs. Huntly and Muriel drew apart from 
the other two, and Muriel could not help 


18 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


noticing how perfectly satisfied Captain 
Hurstly seemed with his companion, and 
how well they got on together. 

When she rose to go Gladys crossed over 
to her. “May I come to see you, Miss 
Dallerton?” she asked. “I want so much 
to know about your work, and I — I like you 
so much ! Don’t think me frightful. I have 
lived in the States, you know, and people 
say all Americans are forgiven everything! 
I do really want so much to know you.” 
She spoke in quick, low tones, the expres- 
sion changing as the shadows on a pool 
change under a light wind. She was very 
appealing. 

“ Oh, but it’s dear of you to like me,” said 
Muriel, smiling. “Please come really, will 
you? You will always find me somewhere 
about the club — Mary has the address.” 
She turned to Captain Hurstly. 

“I am coming with you, if I may,” he 
said. The two descended to the street in 
silence. 

“You’re looking awfully dragged and 
thin. Miss Muriel,” he said at last. 

“You always were so hopelessly rude,’’ 
she laughed. 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 19 

“ You know what I think about the whole 
thing? ” he said gravely. 

“Ah, it’s that which makes me tired!” 
she sighed. “All my friends say just 
the same. They won’t think how — how 
hard they make it for me — no — not even 
you.” 

“Even me?” he asked quietly. She bit 
her lips; she was losing her head it seemed; 
she must not do that. 

“I take the ’bus at this corner,” she said. 

“I think we’ll go by hansom,” said her 
escort. She smiled. 

“You always will contradict me. Captain 
Hurstly.” 

“You will not contradict me if I remind 
you that you used to call me — Jack?” he 
ventured. 

The hansom drove up, and Muriel put out 
her hand to him. She unmistakably in- 
tended to go alone, even though she had 
let him choose her vehicle. 

“I may come and see you?” he asked. 
She frowned a little. 

“I’m very busy, you know,” she said. 

“ Does that mean I’m not to come? ” 

“You might come,” she suggested sud- 


20 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


denly, ‘'and bring Mary’s little cousin; she 
can’t come alone.” 

“ I can though,” he persisted. She shook 
her head and laughed merrily. 

“Mary’s little cousin,” she said as she, 
drove off, “or not at all!” And he never 
went. 


CHAPTER IV 


'^What^s the use of cry in’, when the mother that bore ye 

(Mary, pity women!) knew it all afore ye?” 

The club room, large and bare, with a bench 
or two and one long table, was full of girls, 
though at first glance you might not have 
been inclined to call them so. They were 
all so inexpressibly old. As they stood 
talking in groups, large and broad, with 
their frowsy hair and draggle-tailed dresses, 
lifting loud, rough voices and breaking from 
time to time into hoarse roars of laughter, 
they could scarcely be called prepossessing. 
These were the girls who had warned a 
simple-minded lady Bible-reader that “if 
she didn’t tyke ’erself orf they’d strip her” 
— and they would have done it. 

As Muriel Dallerton entered the room 
the whole gang swarmed towards her in 
greeting. They loved her. “She ’adn’t 
got no nonsense about ’er,” “She was a 
real good sort, and no mistake,” and they 
21 


22 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

showed their appreciation of her by rushing 
from their ten hours’ work into the club and 
paying with treasured pennies the tiny en- 
trance fees she exacted for the classes. 

To-day was cooking class, and from a 
great cupboard were drawn two dozen 
aprons, which they themselves had helped 
to buy and make, 

Muriel knew just what wages they had, 
and never denied them the dignity of giving 
a little, if they had that little to give. 

Two long hours’ class followed. To the 
girls who were accustomed to factory work 
it was mere play, and the plaesure and ex- 
citement of seeing how Mary Ann’s scones 
or Minnie Newlove’s pie turned out was 
inexhaustible. 

It was not until it was over and the cook- 
ing boards and utensils put away that 
Muriel missed one of the number, Lizzie 
Belk was a girl who attended most regu- 
larly, and Muriel walked over to her mate to 
inquire after her. 

‘‘Mary Ann, where is Lizzie this after- 
noon?” she asked. There was a titter of 
laughter from the group of girls with her. 

‘‘Ye will! will ye!” shrieked Mary Ann 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 23 

in a sudden fury. “ Idl bash yer ’ead in for 
ye, Florrie Stevens!” she cried to a girl 
whose laughter was the loudest. “What 
right ’ave ye to pass it on my mate? I’ll 
tell ye, miss.” She appealed to Muriel. 
“Florrie’s none so straight as she can 
blacken poor Liz.” Muriel leaned against 
the table, feeling sick. 

“Hush, Mary, you must not talk like 
that,” she said at last. “What is the mat- 
ter with Lizzie?” There was an uneasy 
silence. “The rest of you can go,” said 
Muriel. “ Good-night, girls, go out quietly, 
please.” And the girls nodding to her in 
rough good-nature went out leaving her 
alone with Lizzie’s mate. 

Muriel crossed to her side and took her 
hand gently. “Poor Lizzie!” she said 
softly. “Poor, poor Lizzie!” Mary burst 
into tears. 

“ ’E ’adn’t ought to er done it, miss, ’e 
really ’adn’t!” she sobbed. “She was 
alwers a straight ’un, was Liz, an’ ’e 
promised ’er the lines an’ all, an’ now ” 

“Where is she, Mary?” said Muriel qui- 
etly. 

“She ain’t got nowheres to go to ’cept 


24 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

the ’orspital. They turned ’er off to-day at 
the factory; an’ ’er father’s beat ’er some- 
think hawful, miss, the blasted, drunken 
sot!” Muriel still held her hand. 

“ I think we had better go and find her,” 
she said. 

“Ye won’t ’ave nought to do with the 
likes o’ ’er, will ye? ” asked the girl in blank 
astonishment. 

“Yes, Mary; don’t you think Lizzie needs 
help?” 

“She needs it bad, miss.” 

“Then that’s what we’re going to give 
her,” said Muriel firmly. Mary still stood 
where she was. 

“Ye — ye won’t be rough on her, miss?” 
she begged in shamefaced tones. “ ’E treat- 
ed ’er cruel bad.” 

“ No, Mary, I won’t be rough on her. I’m 
not angry at all, only so ver^, very sorry. 
It’s such a dreadful thing, isn’t it? Poor 
Lizzie, we must do all we can for her.” 
Mary’s big hand tightened over the slender 
fingers of their “wonderful lady,” who 
seemed to understand without being told, 
and never said more than she meant to do. 

They went out into the streets together. 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 25 

Lizzie was not hard to find. She was in 
a deserted yard near the factory, among 
heaps of refuse and mouldered iron. She 
had cried till she could cry no more, and 
lay in a sort of hopeless apathy, with wide, 
dull eyes staring straight in front of her. 
Muriel knelt down by her side, and Mary, 
with the unobtrusive delicacy many of 
the poorest have, turned away for a little. 

“ Lizzie,” said Muriel, as if she were speak- 
ing to a little child, ‘‘ Lizzie, I want you to 
come with me.” 

‘‘ Oh, my God ! ” said the girl. “ Oh, my 
God!” 

“You will come, won’t you, Lizzie? ” She 
put out her hand. 

“Don’t you dare touch me!” wailed the 
girl. “Who brought ye ’ere? Ye don’t 
know what I am. Oh, my God! my God!” 

“I know all about it, Lizzie, and you 
must get up now and come with me.” 

“They shan’t tyke me to the ’orspital, I 
tell yer — no, nor hanywheres. ’Ome? I 
daren’t show my fice there! D’ye see my 
harm an’ my ’ead? Father did that, an’ ’e 
said ’e’d kill me if I was to come back! Oh, 
let me alone ! Why don’t ye let me alone? ” 


26 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

‘'Get up, Lizzie,” said Muriel, rising 
briskly to her feet. “Get up at once. I 
am not going to take you either home or to 
the hospital. You are coming back with 
Mary and me to the club, and I shall find 
a room for you in my lodgings.” 

“Oh, now, Liz, do come, lovey, do come!” 
Mary urged. Lizzie rose dizzily to her feet, 
and between the two they got her back 
somehow — first to the club, and when they 
had fed her they took her to a room next 
MurieFs. 

The landlady did not say much. “If the 
young lydy choose to look hafter the likes 
o’ ’er, well an’ good, if not she could not 
stiy, of course.” But the young lady did 
choose to look after her, and to pay double 
for the room as well, so there was no more 
to be said. 

It was a terrible night. Muriel never 
forgot it. She sat there holding the girl’s 
hand and hearing the whole story — the old, 
old story, told in all its crude, black reality 
between gasping sobs. 

“ ’E said as ’ow I should ’ave my lines,” 
she groaned; “an’ now ’e says we’d starve. 
But I shouldn’t care for that, miss — no. 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 27 

I shouldn’t, if honly they couldn’t call 


“No, dear, no! they shan’t call you 
that,” Muriel murmured. “What is his 
name, Lizzie?” 

“Oh, ’e ’adn’t er ought to a treated me 
so — Gawd knows ’ow I loves ’im! No! — 
I can’t tell ye ’is name, dear miss — don’t 
hask it ! ” 

“But you must tell me, Lizzie.” 

“Not if I was to die for it, miss!” 

“If you tell me I can help you, Lizzie, 
perhaps to — to get your lines.” 

“Oh, miss, ’e’d never forgive me!” 

“Then I can do nothing, Lizzie.” 

The girl sobbed afresh. Muriel rose and 
went to the window. Out of the dark 
clouds the stars peeped timorously, as if 
afraid to look down on the sad, sordid world 
beneath. A church clock chimed the hour 
— twelve o’clock — and from the public- 
house across the way a burst of brawling 
voices broke. It was illegal she thought to 
close so late. 

The candle on the washstand flickered 
miserably. She went back to the bedside, 
and with careful, tender hands put back 


28 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

the heavy hair and sponged away the 
tears. 

“Lizzie/’ she said, and it seemed to her 
as if the whole of London stood still to 
listen, “there is some one I love with all 
my heart — I — I think I could forgive him 
anything.” She drew in her breath with 
a long gasp. “Now — won’t you tell me 
his name, Lizzie?” she pleaded. The two 
women looked at each other. The girl 
raised herself on her elbow and stared as 
if she were weighing the soul of the other 
woman (she had forgotten she was a lady). 
At last she sank back satisfied. “ If she had 
a man,” Lizzie thought, “she might un- 
derstand.” 

“It’s — it’s Hobbs — Dick Hobbs,” she 
said. “Ye won’t be ’ard on ’im, miss. 
They can’t ’elp it, can they? Not as I 
knows on — an’ hanyway ’twere all my fault, 
I think.” 

“ I — I won’t be hard on him, Lizzie.” The 
tears were rolling down her cheeks. “And 
now I’ll put out this light, and you’ll go to 
sleep, won’t you? And to-morrow I’ll see 
Dick and get a license, and — and every- 
thing. ” 


LIFE, THE INTERPEETER 29 

‘‘Oh, miss!” cried the girl — “not my 
lines? ” 

“Yes, Lizzie ! If you’re a good girl and go 
to sleep you shall have your lines to show.” 
Muriel left her. When she came back a 
few minutes later she found the exhausted 
girl fast asleep; her face was red and 
swollen still with crying, but there was a 
happy smile on her lips. She was only 
seventeen. 

“And there are thousands like this — 
thousands,” thought Muriel. “God for- 
give us our blindness and their pain.” 

Suddenly she felt very faint and dizzy. 
She remembered she had had nothing to 
eat since her tea with Mary Huntly. She 
covered her face with her hands, for she 
realized more overwhelmingly than ever 
that she could never marry Jack Hurstly. 
But though she had cried for the other girl, 
no tears came now. 


CHAPTER V 


God, I would not live, save that I think this gross; 
hard-seeming world 

Is our misshapen vision of the Powers behind the world 
that make our griefs our gains/^ 

A BROAD-BUILT, hulking fellow with a 
coarse, brutal face shouldered his way to- 
wards Muriel. It was one of the men’s 
evenings, and she had dropped in a moment 
to speak to the superintendent, and to give 
one of the men something to take home to 
his sick wife. When the man reached her 
she led him to a quiet corner of the room. 
She had never felt afraid yet, nor did she 
feel so now; only as she looked at the 
flushed, scowling face she felt a little hope- 
less. 

‘‘They said as ’ow you wanted to speak 
to me, miss.” 

“Yes, Dick, I do.” She paused, wonder- 
ing how best to make her appeal to him — 
30 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 31 

where in fact was that spark of the Divine 
she so passionately believed in, so seldom 
touched, yet trusted that she touched more 
often than she knew. “ Lizzie is with me, 
Dick,” she said at last. “Do you think 
that you have treated her quite fairly?” 
The scowl changed to a senseless, meaning 
smile. Muriel felt her eyes flash, but she had 
herself well in hand. “ Do you think it is 
quite a brave, manly thing to do,” she asked 
with slow, quiet intensity, “ to ruin a girl’s 
life — a girl you pretend to care for — who has 
trusted in you? Would you not be ashamed 
of breaking your word to another man? Yet 
you seem to think it no great harm to betray 
a woman! A woman like Lizzie too, who is 
only a child after all, and who kept so 
straight. She is very ill indeed, Dick, and 
when — when the child is born I think she 
will die. Wouldn’t you call a man who had 
behaved so to your sister a — a murderer? ” 
The man’s sullen eyes were fixed on the 
floor; he shifted awkwardly from one leg 
to the other. 

“I don’t see has ye ’ave hany call to 
speak to me like that, miss. I ain’t no 
worse than the other chaps I knows on. 


32 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


I’d like to do fair by Liz, but I ain’t earning 
enough to keep a wife.” 

You should have thought of that before 
you made Lizzie a mother,” said Muriel 
sternly. “ And now you will leave her alone 
to starve,” she added with quiet scorn, 
“after having taken away her only chance 
of earning her living, and — and having done 
the very worst you could.” 

The man said nothing; his face was heavy 
with inarticulate rage; she felt that he 
wanted intensely to knock her down. One 
of his mates remarked to a group of men 
that “’Obbs looked horful hugly.” It did 
not occur to him though to walk away. 
Suddenly her voice softened. 

“Dick,” she said, “you’re not that sort of 
man at all — you know you are not. You 
hadn’t thought of it before — that was all, 
wasn’t it? You didn’t mean to harm poor 
Lizzie so. And she loves you, Dick — she 
wasn’t a bit angry with you — she doesn’t 
blame you at all.” (It had not exactly 
occurred to the man that she did. It was 
a new idea to him that she had a right to.) 

“And — and so I can tell her that you 
want to marry her — will marry her at once. 


LIFE, THE INTERPEETER 


33 


Dick, won’t you, before — before it’s too 
late? You will let me tell her that, won’t 
you?” Still no answer. “I trust you,” 
she said softly; “I feel so sure that you 
have the makings of a good man.” 

His eyes were glued on the floor. He 
felt more bewildered than angry, and still 
obstinately clung to silence, which could 
not, as he phrased it, '‘let him in for any- 
thing.” 

Muriel took a rose she was wearing. 
With a sudden impulse she held it out to 
him. “I gave Lizzie one,” she said gently, 
“one like this. Would you like to wear 
it?” It seemed easier to take it than to 
speak, but somehow he was impelled to 
look at her. Her eyes were fastened on him 
with a look he never forgot — grave, earnest, 
truthful — as if she had weighed his soul and 
was simply waiting for the proof of her 
judgment. 

A voice he scarcely recognized for his 
own growled, “ Well, then, what if I does? ” 

“Thank God!” she murmured softly. 
“Thank God!” He waited for his answer. 
She smiled at him so wonderfully that he 
felt the tears rise to his eyes. Her own eyes 


34 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

swam in them. I will help you all I can,” 
she said. “ Now come with me to Lizzie.” 
He followed unwillingly. 

The men by the door shouted something 
after him as he passed. He did not hear. 
He followed her clumsily with creaking 
boots into a room that resembled nothing 
he had ever seen before, though it was 
simply furnished; and sitting in a large 
chair by the fire was Lizzie. Her eyes 
were fastened on the door with a dumb, 
questioning look. She moved her lips as if 
they were dry. Then she saw him. 

‘‘Oh, my man! my man!” she cried. 
Muriel shut the door quietly, and left them 
alone together. She felt suddenly as if she 
could never feel hopeless again. 


CHAPTER VI 


^‘The tree of Knowledge is not that of Life/! 

“You have not come to see me for some 
time, Jack, yet we used to be good friends 
once, didn’t we? One seems to have one’s 
seasons for those kind of things, then they 
drop out. With sleeves, you know, one 
mustn’t keep the fashion on a bit too long. 
I have known dressmakers — but I w'on’t 
trouble you with my philosophy. I am 
going to have dear Mrs. Huntly and a 
charming cousin of hers to dinner, and so 
thought you might, perhaps, care to join us, 
though I’m candid enough to admit I hope 
it will not be merely for the charming 
cousin’s sake. 

“Edith le Mentier.” 

Jack Hurstly read the note, written on 
rich, heavy cream, a tiny, definite hand be- 
tween large margins. It all seemed very 
35 


36 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


familiar to him. Three years ago there used 
to be a drawer full of them, though he had 
burned them of course, he remembered, after 
the scene in the garden. It had all been 
very graceful and harmless, and he had 
immensely admired and pitied her with her 
dense husband, who shattered her dainty 
little subtleties with a heavy word or two, 
and ‘‘called things,” as she plaintively re- 
marked to Jack, “by their proper names, as 
if things,” she had added, “should ever be 
called by names at all, and least of all by 
their right ones.” 

Then he had met Mmiel. He thought 
of that first evening, and of her frank, 
disarming look, and of how she not only 
did not say things she did not mean, but 
actually went so far as to say the things 
she did. 

It was a change from a little winding 
stream now here, now there, to a free, open 
lake with its clear reflection from the sky. 

It was natural that after this should come 
the scene in the garden; what he could not 
understand was this little dinner three 
years afterwards. 

Cm-iosity and Muriel’s wilful remoteness 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 37 

prompted him to accept the invitation; but 
he did so formally. 

Edith, when she read his letter, broke 
into a little laugh. 

“A joke, my dear?” her husband asked, 
looking over his newspaper across the 
breakfast table. 

“Certainly not, Ted,” said Edith; “I 
should never dream of laughing at a joke at 
breakfast time ! ” Her husband returned to 
his sporting notes — they seemed to him so 
much easier to understand. 

Mrs. le Mentier prepared to meet her 
guests by dressing in Jack Hurstly’s favor- 
ite color. It happened to be the one which 
suited her; but it is possible she would have 
worn it if it had not. It takes a woman 
longer than three years to forget a man’s 
favorite colors, and longer still not to wear 
them when she remembers. 

Gladys Travers was the first to arrive, 
with Mary Huntly’s brother, a deeply 
earnest young clergyman with thoughtful 
eyes. “Cyril had to bring me,” she said, 
smiling, “because Mary had a headache, 
one of those horrid dark-room ones, you 
know, with tea and toast. I don’t believe 


38 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

he quite approves though of dinner parties, 
do you, Cyril?” Mrs. le Mentier shook 
hands with him sympathetically. 

‘‘I know quite well what you feel,” she 
said in her slow, gentle voice. ‘‘It’s the 
herding together of rich people to eat 
brilliantly, while all the great half of the 
world have no brilliance and no dinner, 
and I think it is so good of you to 
come. IVe only just really one or two 
to-night, so I hope you won’t find us very 
worldly.” 

Cyril Johnstone had blushed at his 
cousin’s speech, but now that his hostess 
paused he said gently, “Mary was so very 
sorry she could not come.” 

“Dear Mary,” Edith murmured as she 
glided across the room to welcome two 
men who had entered at the same time — 
Jack Hmstly and a young doctor, a man 
of good family and even better brains. 
“How good of you to come, doctor!” said 
she, her eyes sparkling their most vivid 
welcome. “One feefe,” she said, turning to 
the young clergyman, “with busy men like 
you what a debt of gratitude one owes. 
Now you. Captain Hurstly,” she added (for 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 39 

the first time addressing Jack), ‘'had, I am 
sure, nothing to give up? ” 

“Everything to attract, certainly,” said 
Jack with a smile at Gladys, who was 
glancing with laughing, observant eyes 
from one to the other. 

Dinner was announced, and Edith, tak- 
ing the young priest’s arm, followed the rest 
of the party. She was thinking it extremely 
stupid of dear Mary to have a dark-room 
headache, and she was talking to Mr. John- 
stone on the marvellous utility of Bands of 
Hope. 

“Yes,” she said, glancing over the flower- 
decked table, “it’s the name itself. Hope! 
What a lot it calls up, doesn’t it? Spring 
mornings, one imagines, and skies too blue 
to deny one anything. There’s something 
in the word which makes one think of 
waves.” 

“Because they break themselves on the 
rocks? ” suggested Gladys, “ or cover quick- 
sands? ” 

“It’s a word,” said the doctor, smiling, 
“with a very expansive meaning, and a use 
even more expanded than its meaning.” 

Mr. Johnstone looked across to Mrs. le 


40 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


Mentier. “It’s one of the cardinal virtues,’’ 
he said gently. 

“And they,” said his cousin, looking at 
Jack, “ always close a conversation, because 
you see it’s so inconvenient to have to take 
off one’s shoes.” 

Mr. Johnstone looked shocked, and Edith 
started another subject. 

“My husband,” she said, “is away — fish- 
ing, I think it is. He has, poor man, a 
deadly feud against all animal nature, and 
he spends his time trying to exterminate it. 
I must confess it seems to me rather a hope- 
less quest.” 

“Don’t you English say,” asked Gladys 
of the doctor, “that it’s strengthening to 
the character?” 

The doctor smiled. “ More to the muscles 
than to the character, I should fancy,” he 
said. 

“ But isn’t it one of your tests of a char- 
acter,” she persisted, “in England that it 
should have fine muscles? ” The conversa- 
tion became international. Edith watched, 
but took no part; she was listening to Jack, 
who was not talking to her. 

He was instead appealing to Cyril John- 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 41 

stone. ‘‘Are you at all interested,” he 
asked, “ in those slum clubs? ” The priest’s 
face brightened. 

“Immensely,” he said. “My work is 
there, you know, and so I have seen a good 
deal of them. But of course you refer to 
those under parochial guidance?” 

“Captain Hurstly,” Mrs. le Mentier broke 
in, “is referring, I feel sure, to the sweetest 
free-lance in the world, a dear friend of ours 
who has thought it her duty to disassociate 
herself from her home, and even to a certain 
extent from the Church, because she thinks 
she can, as the phrase goes, ‘reach nearer 
to the people’s hearts’ that way. You’ll 
admit it’s heroically brave of her. People’s 
hearts give one such shocks when one does 
get near them.” 

“A case of hysteria,” murmured the 
doctor under his breath, “in its most patent 
modern form.” 

Gladys glanced lightly at Jack Hurstly; 
then she said in a sweet, penetrating voice, 
“There you are wrong, doctor. Muriel is 
the most healthy-minded girl I know.” 

“Her hysteria may be confined to one 
form,” he ventured. 


42 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

“Ah, but you should see her!” said 
Gladys. Here the voice of Cyril Johnstone 
broke in. 

“It seems to me,” he exclaimed, “the 
saddest thing in the world and the most 
useless. There has been too much talk 
about the people’s hearts, too many mis- 
sions of sentimental women. What can 
they give the people? Their need, their 
crying need, is for the cultivation of the 
soul, and it is we — set apart as God’s minis- 
ters — who are called upon, and to whom 
alone rightly belongs the unspeakable privi- 
lege and duty of serving the poor!” 

Mrs. le Mentier looked gravely devotional 
and stifled a yawn. 

Jack Hurstly looked at Gladys, who again 
meeting his look broke out into a defence. 

“And while the Low and the High, the 
Broad and the Long (if there are any long, 
or if they aren’t all long), quarrel as to who 
shall help the poor, and how they shall be 
dressed to do it, what are the poor going to 
do? And why shouldn’t a woman, or even 
a man for that matter, go down among them 
and teach them how to live? What kind 
of souls are you going to teach in wretchedly 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


43 


uncultivated bodies, cousin Cyril? And if 
you believe in clubs, why aren’t you thank- 
ful for their work, even if the clergy are not 
asked to take Bible classes in them? As 
for Muriel and her poor, she’s taught them 
how to smile, and I actually heard one of 
them say ‘Thank you’ the other day. I 
don’t believe an archbishop could do as 
much even with his robes on.” 

Mr. Johnstone opened his mouth to an- 
swer her tirade; but Jack Hurstly, who had 
been listening delightedly, clapped his hands 
and laughed, and he felt that it was impos- 
sible to argue against a joke. Mrs. le Men- 
tier rose to her feet smiling. She felt that 
her dinner had not helped her much; and 
she did not love Gladys. 

“Let us leave the gentlemen alone, dear,” 
she said, “to discuss our short-comings and 
their dominion. It’s an entrancing subject, 
I believe — when you can have it all your 
own way.” 

The two women floated gracefully out of 
the room. They were rejoined very shortly 
by the men, whom it is presiuned found 
their points of view on “the entrancing 
subject’’ too different for prolonged dis- 


44 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

cussion. Gladys and the doctor stood out 
on the balcony. 

The balmy June evening filled with the 
noises of the streets below seemed very 
soothing to them, and their talk interested 
both immensely, so much so that they did 
not hear Mrs. le Mentier preparing to sing, 
and only ceased when her low, sweet voice 
rang out, “Life and the world and mine 
ownself are changed for a dream’s sake — 
for a dream’s sake.” 

It was a simple song, but she sung it with 
a quiet passion and intensity that entirely 
captivated her audience. When the song 
was over they were not ready with their ap- 
plause, and even the doctor looked as if he 
had met an ideal. Edith sang again, and 
they went home, all but Jack Hurstly. “I 
must speak to you a minute. Jack,” his 
hostess had murmured as he turned over the 
leaves of her music, and for the song’s sake 
he stayed. 

She stood in the middle of the room, her 
hands held loosely in front of her, like a 
child’s. “Haven’t you punished me long 
enough — Jack?” she asked. 

“My dear Mrs. le Mentier,” he began. 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


45 


‘‘Ah!’’ she murmured, “Mrs. le Mentier! 
Mrs. — le Mentier — Jack!” 

He had before wished that he had never 
come; there seemed now nothing else to do 
but to wish it more strongly. She looked 
so young and piteous, and her eyes were full 
of a real emotion. The only ways left were 
to be weak or brutal. The last alternative 
would end the scene quicker. 

“It doesn’t seem much good, does it,” he 
finally said, “to go over all this again? ” 

She smiled wistfully. “Is it all over 
then for you? ” she asked. “ Do you know, 
it was silly of me, wasn’t it? I somehow 
thought you might still be the same, and 
the three years’ penance enough for the 
past mistake? ” She spoke with a kind of 
strained slowness very pitiful to hear. 

“Things have changed so!” he muttered. 

“Things?” she laughed. “How a man 
falls back on the inanimate ! ‘ Things don’t 

change, my dear Jack, but women grow 
older and men grow wiser — that’s all. Let 
me congratulate you then on your increase 
of wisdom, and you will be a little sorry — 
for my increasing age?” He frowned and 
looked at the door; she winced as if he had 


46 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

struck her. “You want to go?” she said. 
“Well, there’s one thing, my dear Jack, for 
you to remember. If you should get tired 
of your sweet firebrand in the slums, ‘ things 
have not changed,’ you will remember, 
won’t you? And women don’t — so the way 
is still open.” 

He stepped past her to the door, but he 
turned back to look at her (he often turned 
back). She was twisting her fan in her 
hands and trying to smile. 

“You can always come back,” she said. 

,“Oh! I’m not such a brute as that!’’ 
exclaimed the man at the door. 

“Oh, aren’t you?” she laughed. “You 
have your limits, then? I’m so glad ! And 
you had better go now, for I have mine 
too.” 

When the door closed firmly after him 
limits seemed to dissolve. She put the 
fan down carefully on the table, and she 
looked at her miserable face in the glass 
with a vague, ulterior satisfaction, for even 
if one’s heart was broken it was something 
of a comfort that one looked distinctly 
pretty in tears. 


CHAPTER VII 


‘‘So long as we know not what it opens, nothing can 
be more beautiful than a keyJ[ 

The short June days soon came to an end, 
and Muriel found them none too short, for 
warmth can only be enjoyed by the luxuri- 
ous, and her life at present was anything 
but that. 

If one plunged into the work and life of 
the people it needed strength both of will 
and body to carry one through its disillu- 
sions. 

There was nothing in the least exciting 
in the work before her — it was merely very 
hard. Occasionally it was true the great 
opportunity would arise, as it had done in 
the case of poor Liz. But next to their 
extraordinary infrequency came the swift- 
ness with which all the greatness evapo- 
rated: their very sins were so matter-of- 
fact, and the larger elements in life were 
taken so unpicturesquely that they seemed 
47 


48 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


shorn of their solemnity, and then strangely 
robbed of all ‘‘the trailing clouds” of mys- 
tery. When a widow spoke of her dead 
husband as “ ’E made a beautiful corpse, ’e 
did — ^yer ought to er seen ’im, miss,” the 
word died on her lips, and to look at a dead 
baby as being “one less mouth to feed,” 
jarred on all her tender notes of sjmipathy 
by the crudity of its truth. 

Muriel wrote to Gladys, who, strange to 
say, had come to see her alone, not once but 
often, that she had never known “death 
could be vulgar before;” and, though she 
felt very worried at the thought of shutting 
up the club for three months, she confessed 
to herself her heart rose at the thought 
of the long, easy luxury of house-parties, 
country days, and even a glimpse of the sea. 
People, too, who said a little more — and 
meant a little less — she looked forward to 
meeting with a positive sense of rest. Clear 
black and white were rather glaring she 
thought, and how life was mellowed by a 
little mist ! Jack Hurstly had never been to 
see her. She had heard of him occasionally 
from Gladys. 

Sir Arthur wished her to come at once to 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 49 

Blacklands, a house in a beautiful vicinity, 
not too far from the conveniences of life; 
and towards the end of July, very tired 
and fagged, Muriel packed up her things 
to go. There were many good-byes to be 
said, but they were all over now with the 
exception of Liz — Liz and the baby. She 
had not seen either of them lately. As she 
knocked at the door she heard the long, 
fretful wail of a sick child, and then the 
ungracious tones of a woman’s voice. 

‘‘Ah, it’s you, is it?” she added shrilly as 
Muriel entered. “I thought you had given 
us the slip. No, I ain’t been cornin’ to the 
club, nor I don’t mean to — nor Dick neither, 
we ’ave ’ad enough of it, we ’ave.” 

Muriel showed no surprise. She sat down 
and looked at the poor little baby tossing 
disconsolately on its mother’s lap. 

“Isn’t he well?” she asked. 

“No, ’e ain’t,” said Liz more gently; “’e 
do take on somethink hawful in this ’eat. ’E 
cries all night, and Dick won’t come nigh 
’im. I’d a been a deal better off without 
’im, that’s what I’d a been. What’s the use 
o’ a ’usband who drinks all ’e earns? ’E 
don’t do me no good, and I don’t do ’im no 


50 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

good — we’re better apart.” She looked at 
Muriel viciously in her increasing anger and 
fear, turning on the first object she met. 

“You’re very tired, Lizzie,” she said 
gently, “and very hot. Have you been 
sitting up all night with baby?” 

“I don’t keep no nurse!” 

“Poor little thing,” said Muriel, holding 
out her arms for it; “poor little dear.” 

“’E’ll crease your pretty skirt.” Muriel 
laughed. 

“Now, tell me,” she said, “what do you 
mean about Dick. Is he really taking to 
drink?” 

Lizzie forgot her resentment and poured 
out her troubles, and so again the woman 
in Muriel conquered. Yet she knew that 
there would be no gratitude for what she 
did. Lizzie only envied her — “her pretty 
frock.” 

She wrote to her uncle promising to go 
down the next day. Muriel arrived at 
Blacklands to be met by the footman and a 
carriage. The trappings of a luxury she had 
spurned seemed at present very grateful to 
her. They belonged, she realized, to a class 
of things one does not actually need, and yet 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


51 


seems to miss more than even the neces- 
sities. As she drove comfortably through 
the village she was possessed by a complete 
set of new faculties. All her old fund of light- 
hearted laughter sprang again within her; 
her quick, observant eyes (which she had 
used more lately to ignore than to observe) 
found beauties at every turn. She felt a de- 
sire to sketch two cottages half lost in honey- 
suckle planted with the most perfect effect 
of naturalness under the old tower of the 
ivy-covered church. The churchyard seemed 
the most perfectly restful thing she had ever 
seen. She longed to pick the hedge flowers; 
to let the wind blow about her hair, with no 
restraining erection to keep it in place; to 
walk barefoot across the cool, green fields; 
to hunt for birds’ nests in the wood; to 
climb the hills at sunset time — in short, a 
passion of longing to come near to Nature 
held her; to forget all the many inventions 
of the clever, brutal, unscrupulous mind of 
man; to be once, for however little time, 
one with the world as ‘‘God has made it.” 
She found herself taking off her gloves, and 
at that moment the carriage swept up the 
drive of a large old house, with an exterior 


52 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


too ancient to be quarrelled with, and an 
interior too full of the best of modern 
‘improvements” to be in the least appro- 
priate. 

Gladys was standing on the steps. She 
held Muriel in her arms. On the younger 
girl’s face there was an almost passionate 
welcome, and she tried to hide her eagerness 
in laughter, chatting in graceful snatches 
over a thousand little nothings as the two 
girls went to their rooms. “Did Muriel 
know that there was no one there but them- 
selves? — everybody was coming down to- 
morrow. Yes, that abominable little flirt, 
Edith le Mentier, and her husband with his 
exquisite stupidity, a cloak which covered 
all his other sins — in the eyes of his wife 
at least. Mary Huntly, too, not Tom — 
he couldn’t. These business men really 
worked; but Muriel was a business woman, 
wasn’t she — the dear Muriel.” Muriel de- 
clared she only worked for the sake of enjoy- 
ing laziness. They went down to tea. 
“That doctor, too,” Gladys continued, 
“with an advanced sister with red hair, 
cigarette and a bull-dog — at least I think it’s 
a bull-dog.” 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


53 


Of course it is,” laughed Muriel. ‘‘ You 
must retain something, however far you 
advance, and the bull-dog does that for 
you.” 

‘‘The doctor overworked, you know; and 
the sister’s devoted. Then there’s Captain 
Hurstly, of course!” 

“Why of course?” said Muriel quietly. 

“Oh, well ” Gladys stopped, “don’t 

you want him?” 

“No, my dear, I don’t.” 

“Your uncle thought ” 

“Oh, when he thinks,” laughed Muriel, 
lifting her shoulders. 

“And there’s a friend of his ” 

“My uncle’s?” 

“Silly! — Captain Hurstly’s — a Sir Some- 
body Bruce.” 

“Alec?’’ suggested Muriel, quietly select- 
ing some seed-cake. “I know him well.” 

“ Do you? ” said Gladys, “ I scarcely know 
him at all. What did you think of him?” 
Her little air of indifference was beautiful. 
Muriel sighed. 

“He’s like the rest,” she said wearily. 
“Splendid, capable, broad-shouldered and 
— ^useless. I think if I were a man like that 


54 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

I should use my talent as a good shot for 
personal purposes; it would seem to me less 
wasteful.” 

Oh, but, Muriel, we girls we’re none of 
us any better. You, dearest, you’re differ- 
ent. And in America I was different too. 
There’s so little strain in being happy there 
— so little waste in pleasure. The rush of life, 
its width and lack of limits, is a continual 
occupation; but here there are too many 
women. Some of them must be old maids. 
It’s like the game of musical chairs. They 
none of them, you see, want to be left out, 
so they take the first place vacant. They 
have an eye on their opportunities; they 
make efforts to attain, and a masterly 
mamma backs them. When you come to 
think of it — their training, their suppres- 
sion! You can’t wonder they take their 
first opening. But for women to be hunt- 
ers — forgive the naked, cruel term, darling 
— is repulsive. Oh, if I had a daughter I 
should drown her, or bring her up to some- 
thing more worth living for!” 

She walked about the room putting this 
and that to rights. The housemaid had 
done it before her, but the quick, nervous 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 55 

movements delivered her of the tension she 
seemed under, 

“ Something’s very badly wrong, ’’thought 
Muriel, and aloud she suggested the garden. 

The birds were making twilight magical 
on the velvet lawn. They sat breathing in 
the soft, rich air, heavy with the scent of 
summer flowers, too utterly at peace with 
Nature and the restful spell she can throw 
at moments over the most tortured hearts 
to do more than hush themselves into 
silence. 

Muriel was the first to speak. She re- 
membered long afterwards how startling 
her voice sounded. 

‘‘You have something to ask me?’’ 

“Ah! — no, no.” 

“ Something to tell me? ” 

“ It’s hard — oh, Muriel, dearest — dearest, 
it’s hard ! ” cried Gladys. 

“Hard things are sometimes better 
shared,” said Muriel. 

“The hardest and the dearest sometimes 
can’t be,” Gladys sighed. “What can I 
do?” she added miserably. “It’s so old 
and stale, just the eternal wrong situations 
Nature pulls about so, or man gets twisted 


56 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


into! Mary, my cousin, you know, wants 
me — wants me to marry. I’m dependent on 
her, you see, since father failed in the States. 
They had me educated in England, and they 
ruined that for me — the steady setness that 
might have helped me now — by the wildest 
three years in America. Sixteen 1 — and their 
world without barriers, where everybody 
wants you to have a good time! No, I’m 
not crying — not for that. It lasted three 
years, and after the smash they sent me 
here. Mary doesn’t know what to do with 
me. I’m not her sort — I’m always getting 
into scrapes. I seem to have got into the 
nursery again, where there is nothing but 
corners. I’m in leading strings to a — maid. 
There’s only one way out of my nursery, 
Mary says — Muriel, it’s open now — but I 
almost think I’d rather throw myself out of 
the window than make use of it.” 

Muriel looked at her. “And is there no 
other door?” she asked gently. 

“Ah! not mine — somebody else’s, and — 
they’ve got the key.” 

“Where does it lead to?” Muriel asked. 

“I — I don’t know. The most beautiful 
place in the world, I fancy; but if it was a 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 57 

wilderness it would be the only way for 
me!” Timidly Gladys put out her hands, 
and Muriel held them, drawing the girl 
closer to her. She asked with wonderful 
mother-eyes the question no words could 
draw from her. 

‘‘Yes,” she said at last, “people made a 
mistake when they thought the world was 
large. It’s very small — one woman’s heart 
can hold the whole of it.” 

“Muriel,” the other gasped, “Muriel, do 
you care for him?” 

“For Alec Bruce, dear child? No|” 
Suddenly her hands grew cold, a fear seized 
her, cutting her breath short and making 
the silence strangely empty. “You don’t 
mean him? ” she asked very slowly as if she 
were just learning to talk. The girl shook 
her head. “You mean Jack Hurstly?” 
pursued Muriel gently inexorable. The girl 
caught her hands away and covered her 
face. 

“Oh, Muriel! Muriel!” she sobbed. “I 
don’t — I don’t care for him.” 

“Neither do I,” said Muriel very coldly. 

“Don’t you? — don’t you?” the girl ex- 
claimed, her eyes shining like stars through 


68 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

a cloud. ‘‘Then, oh, dearest — my dearest, 
give me the key!” 

Muriel stood quite still smiling. She felt 
as if she were having a photograph taken; 
she must not move; she must try to look 
pleasant — that’s what they call it. She was 
still so long that Gladys looked up in won- 
der. The elder girl drew her into her arms. 

“It will be sure to come out well,” she 
murmured. Then aloud: “Little darling, 
you have always had the key — mine was 
only a skeleton one, and, Gladys, I never 
could have used it.” The girl clung to her 
shivering with joy. 

“Then, after all, you do care for him a 
little? ” Muriel said tenderly. Gladys lifted 
up her eyes. They seemed much older — 
they were so happy and so sure. 

“ I told you there was only the one way — 
the one way in all God’s earth for me. I 
think I should have thrown myself out of 
the window if you hadn’t given me the 
key!” 

“Oh, don’t!” cried Muriel half sobbing. 

Gladys smiled. “Dearest, you don’t 
understand — you see you don’t care for 
him as I do!” she said. 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 59 

‘‘No/’ repeated Muriel very slowly and 
carefully, “I don’t quite understand — you 
see I don’t — don’t care for him. Do you 
know, little dear, it’s getting rather chilly. 
Hadn’t we better go in and dress for din- 
ner? ” 

“Oh, to think of dinner!” laughed 
Gladys. “How we do mix things, don’t 
we? It’s too terribly material.” 

But of the two she had the better appe- 
tite. Muriel had never lied before, and she 
found it very tiring. 


CHAPTER VIII 

A self-sacrifice that is thorough must never pause.’ 


‘'Sunday,” said Edith le Mentier, lazily 
swaying her parasol, “does my religion for 
me. When I hear the sweet church bells 
chiming over the cow-laden fields I say to 
myself this is a Christian country. Cows 
and a church — certainly I, too, must be a 
Christian.” 

“And your responsibility ends there?” 
asked Gladys, who with others of the party 
was dressed to go to the little church across 
the fields. 

“My responsibility, my dear, er — ^Miss 
Gladys — as you so deliciously call it, is never 
at work in that sphere. No! I recognize 
it at my dressmaker’s; I am crushed under 
it in shops; I frequently come face to face 
with it in the choice of a cook. Beyond 
this,” Mrs. le Mentier put out a dainty foot 
imder a frilled petticoat, “beyond this I am 
60 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 61 

a rational being — that is, whenever it is 
possible I persuade some one else to do my 
effort-making for me. Captain Hurstly, I 
want a footstool; dear, delightful creatures, 
do go and do my praying for me; Sir 
Arthur,” here she put her head graciously 
towards their slightly embarrassed host, 
“is going to stay to keep me com- 
pany.” 

“Delighted, I am sure,” murmured Sir 
Arthur, handing Gladys’ prayer-book which 
he had been carrying to the doctor, who 
stood grimly and uncompromisingly silent. 
It was natural that after that Gladys and 
Dr. Grant should walk together and Muriel 
find herself with Jack Hurstly. Cynthia 
Grant, the doctor’s sister, had not yet re- 
turned from a visit to the stables with Sir 
Alec. Muriel had not seen Jack for some 
time. He was always large and masterful 
(in the most calmly protective meaning of 
the word), but there was to-day a certain 
alertness and unobtrusive eagerness in his 
manner that was new to her. They knew 
each other well enough to be able to float 
off easily into commonplace chatter. It 
paved the way for all the important things 


62 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

which lost their stiffness by being set in a 
background of familiar banter. 

“I’m having a holiday,” said Jack, smil- 
ing down at her oddly. 

“You a holiday! You look terribly as if 
you needed it!” she laughed. 

“I’ve been working rather hard, really,” 
he said. 

“Fishing is over?” she asked. 

“Oh, Miss Muriel, but I’ve had a harder 
job to tackle. I’ve been trying to get the 
place at home in decent order — getting 
cottages built and all that sort of thing.” 

“You were always so practical,’’ she 
murmured. 

“Because, you see, the place has been a 
little weedy lately, and as I am to be off 
again soon I wanted to leave it in order 
before I went.” 

“Hunting big game?’’ she suggested 
indifferently. 

“ Well — ^yes, rather. You see there’s been 
a little scrapping in India on the frontier, 
and — well, I thought it would be rather 
jolly to have a shot at the little beggars my- 
self. You see the regiment being at Aider- 
shot a fellow hasn’t got much to do, and so 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 63 

I have joined — temporarily, of course — a 
batch of men who are going out in Septem- 
ber. Do you wish me luck? ” 

‘‘Your occupations,” said Muriel coldly, 
“always seem to me a little brutal.” Then 
she glanced more kindly at him. 

He was disconsolately grumbling, “Oh, 
I say now!” and cutting the heads off the 
nettles with his stick. They were nearing 
the church. 

“Oh, I hope. Jack,” she used the name 
with her old deliberate frankness, looking 
him in the eyes, steadily and kindly, “that 
you will have the best of luck. I can’t 
tell you how glad I am to see you set to 
work again, and make something of all 
that’s in you — all I know that’s in you.” 

He beamed with pleasure, though he was 
still a little puzzled at her former sharpness. 
“It’s awfully good of you. Miss Muriel,” 
he said, opening the gate; “and you — you 
must know that if I am worth anything at 
all it’s all owing to you. And now that you 
say you believe in me,” he drew a long 
breath, “I think I could do anything — any- 
thing in the world to show you you’re not 
mistaken.” 


64 LIFE; THE INTERPRETER 

Muriel said nothing. When they reached 
the porch she turned to him, and not looking 
at him said slowly, ‘^I am quite sure I am 
not mistaken. Jack.’' 

The church was cold and dark after the 
bright sunshine in the fields. In the 
church she remembered Gladys, and forgot 
to listen to the sermon. She and the 
doctor walked back together and quarrelled 
all the way. 

It was that still, impossible hour of Sun- 
day afternoon when the drowsiness of after 
lunch and the distance of five-o’clock tea 
combine to make inaction of one sort or 
another absolutely essential. Sir Arthur 
Dallerton, however, was uncomfortably wide 
awake. His protracted conversation with 
his charming guest contributed not a little 
to the unnatural keenness of his feelings, 
and with Sir Arthur Dallerton to feel 
keenly was to be in more or less of a bad 
temper. He saw Muriel out of his smok- 
ing-room window, and beckoned to her to 
come in. 

“What are you doing, Muriel,” he 
asked severely, “at this time of the after- 
noon? ” 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


65 


“Everybody is going out on the river 
after tea, so I was seeing about the boats,’’ 
she said. 

“That, Muriel, is the business of the 
gardener.” 

“I like minding the gardener’s busi- 
ness,” said Muriel smiling. 

“My dear,” said her uncle gravely, “If 
you would leave the gardener’s business 
alone, and attend a little more to your own, 
I should be better pleased.” 

“What do you mean, uncle?” the girl 
asked, sitting down opposite him with her 
wide-open, unembarrassed eyes. 

“Of course I know that it makes no 
difference to you what I wish — that I take 
for granted to begin with.” 

She moved her head impatiently; she 
hated the way he had of opening any discus- 
sion with injured personalities. He waited 
for a protest, and not hearing one he con- 
tinued with increased vehemence. 

“You are now twenty-seven. You have 
had plenty of opportunities to settle down 
in life. I have never attempted to force 

your hand ” A look in the girl’s eyes 

suggested the prudence of this course. “I 


66 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


must say I have been uncommonly generous 
in overlooking your extraordinary schemes, 
but I never dreamed they excluded mar- 
riage. May I ask, Muriel — I think I have 
a right to know — if all my hopes are to 
be in vain simply through the obstinacy 
of an untrained, selfish girl? Do you, 
Muriel — I insist upon knowing this — in- 
tend to marry? ” 

“ I am sorry you insist, uncle,”said Muriel 
very quietly, though two bright spots of 
angry color burned in her cheeks, “because 
I am afraid I can give you no satisfactory 
answer to your hopes. It is very improb- 
able — if you really wish to know — that I 
shall ever marry.’' 

“What about Jack Hurstly?” 

“I do not know to what you refer.” 

“I thought your objection to him was 
that he didn’t stick to his profession. He’s 
sticking to it fast enough now.” Muriel 
winced. “And,” he continued with more 
hope of success, “ he’ll probably got potted 
by a native, and then perhaps you’ll be sat- 
isfied. You women who talk the most 
about cruelty are always the ones to send 
us poor devils to our graves.” 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


67 


“ I have never had any objection to Jack 
Hurstly, and I have none now, but I cer- 
tainly am not going to marry him. If he 
gets killed in India, as you thoughtfully 
suggested, it will perhaps prove to you that 
he is beyond your matrimonial schemes. 
I do not believe anything else would,” 
said Muriel, now thoroughly aroused. She 
looked lovely when she was angry: the 
gray eyes blazed and widened, the firm chin 
became inexorable, and her nostrils dilated 
like a spirited horse. Her uncle, who had 
an eye for beauty, appreciated her ap- 
pearance, but was too vexed to remark 
on it. 

“Gad! you have the temper of a devil!’’ 
he grumbled in reluctant admiration; “but 
if you won’t have Jack Hurstly, you won’t. 
And on the whole you might do better. 
What I want you thoroughly to understand 
is I’ll have no monkey business with that 
young doctor. I didn’t ask him down 
here, or you either, for any such purpose. 
If you had liked Jack Hurstly, well and 
good. I wouldn’t have opposed the match. 
He’s got blood, and he’s got money, and I 
have nothing against him. But I have 


68 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

set my heart on one thing if you won’t 
have him.” He stopped a moment. 
“Muriel,” he said, “you know my heart 
is weak, and it’s very bad for me to be 
opposed.” 

Muriel smiled; the scene lost its strain; 
the gay voices of idlers on the lawn came 
in through the windows with the after- 
dinner grace of the “wise thrushes” in the 
shrubbery. They all sounded so restful 
and contented. But she — must she battle 
till her life’s end? Tears of self-pity rose 
to her eyes. Her uncle supposed them to 
be signs of softening grace. 

“My child,” he said, “Sir Alec Bruce is 
a good man, and he loves you.” 

“He has a good income and a good 
family,” suggested the girl maliciously. 

Sir Arthur waved them aside grandly. 
“I have set my heart upon the match,” 
said; “my life is risked by a disappoint- 
ment.” 

Muriel crushed her hands together ner- 
vously. “And what about my life?” she 
said at last. “But I suppose that doesn’t 
matter,” and ignoring her uncle’s wrathful 
exclamation she stepped out of the French 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 69 

windows and joined the idlers on the lawn. 
Sir Arthur waited a few moments for a 
heart attack to come on, but as nothing 
happened he also went into the garden. 
But a few moments had dissipated the 
group, and only Cynthia Grant remained 
with a bull-dog and a cigarette. She 
looked extremely unsympathetic, and 
grumbling under his breath something 
far from complimentary about advanced 
young women he returned to the house. 
A moment later Dr. Grant joined his sister 
on the lawn. The bull-dog, appropriately 
named “ Grip,” looked wistfully from one to 
the other. He knew it was impossible to 
be at the feet of both at the same time, and 
so with chivalrous courtesy he curled him- 
self up once more by his mistress’s side 
and listened with heavily absorbed eyes to 
the following conversation. 

“Do you really mean to do it?” asked 
Cynthia curtly. 

“If I hadn’t, why should I have come 
here?” replied her brother, giving short 
puffs at his pipe. “You know I feel aw- 
fully out of this sort of thing — an abom- 
inably lazy lot.” Grip, who with the mag- 


70 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

nificent patience of the strong had long 
been putting up with an inquisitive and 
infuriating fly, now relieved his feelings 
with a successful snap. 

Cynthia laughed bitterly. ‘‘You won’t 
get her so easily as that,” she said by way of 
illustration. “And why should I want you 
to? Has it never occurred to you, my 
dear brother, that I might prefer you better 
unmarried. It’s a slackening sort of thing 
at best for a man, and we’ve always 
roughed it together, haven’t we, Geoff? 
Pretty cosily, too, I think.” 

“You might get married yourself,” he 
said gloomily. The girl suggestively lit a 
cigarette. 

“I don’t think so, Geoff,” she said with 
a queer little laugh. “Has it never 
occurred to you that I’m thirty, and 
you’ve never been particularly keen on it 
before? ” 

“I’m not now — but I think it’s a good 
thing for a girl.” 

“ You mean for a man, don’t you? ” He 
looked at her quietly. 

“You’re not like yourself to-day, Sis,” 
he said gently. “What’s wrong?” 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 71 

‘^You’re trying to marry Muriel Daller- 
ton. She’s in love with Jack Hurstly, 
whom she’s trying to marry to that emo- 
tional little Gladys thing. Meanwhile, un- 
less they are all very careful, Edith le Men- 
tier means to play her own game with 
them all.” 

“How do you know Miss Dallerton’s 
in love with Hurstly?” asked the doctor, 
savagely ignoring the rest of the remarks. 
She turned on him with mocking eyes. 

“She is interested in his conversation,” 
she said, and they both burst out laughing. 
Grip placed his head massively on her 
hands and looked both question and re- 
proach at her. “His business, Grip,” she 
said, “is to get perfectly rested, not to 
tread on lazy people’s corns, and to see as 
much as possible of the right young lady. 
As for me. Grip” — she dropped some in- 
conveniently heated ashes on his pink 
nose, which made him shake his head and 
blink severely like a shocked old lady — 
“where do I come in? Well, I have my 
own little game to play. And here’s dear 
Edith in a fresh pink gown. Let’s go and 
meet her — she’s so fond of us both. And 


72 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


you she looked back with a whimsical 

tenderness at her brother, “just go down 
to the river and find your young lady, 
only for Heaven’s sake don’t glare at her 
like that!” 


CHAPTER IX 

It is sometimes possible to say ‘ No/ but hard to live 
up to it.” 

Muriel had not in the least intended to 
find herself alone with Jack Hurstly in a 
canoe. It all happened so naturally that 
protests and excuses were out of the 
question. She looked rather wistfully at 
Gladys in a larger boat, who was talking 
with nervous gaiety to Alec Bruce, while 
Mary Huntly in the stern looked on with 
serene approval. Gladys would not look 
at her friend, and something in the girl’s 
manner and carriage seemed to denote an 
intense displeasure, which, after her con- 
fidence to Muriel, was not on the whole in- 
comprehensible. Muriel sighed hopelessly. 
Circumstances, she thought, were against 
her, and Jack was with her; she might be 
stronger than the circumstances, but she 
had begun to feel that she was not as strong 
as Jack. 


73 


74 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

“I really have changed my life a bit,” 
he went on, as if continuing their last con- 
versation. Do you know when you went 
to Stepney, and I got to know about all you 
were doing — how you gave those girls such 
a good time and helped them in their homes, 
and all that, you know — it made me feel 
what a cheap sort of thing the life of the 
fellows about town is, and how, after all, 
there isn’t so very much in just having a 
good time if there’s nothing else besides or 
beyond it. I hope you won’t think I’m 
talking awful rot?” he interrupted himself 
nervously. She shook her head; she found 
it difficult to speak; her hand dipped in the 
water seemed to her a sort of illustration 
of how impossible it was to grasp her treas- 
ure even while it surrounded her. They 
were singing down the stream the air of a 
new opera, and that, and the trailing 
branches overhead, would have made a 
wonder of beauty if she had not loved 
Gladys. “Sacrifices lasted too long,” she 
thought. 

“And so,” he continued, watching her 
with eager, earnest eyes as he talked, 
“while I was waiting for leave to go out 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


75 


to India I started a sort of club at home 
— among the tenants, you know. Nothing 
much of a place — only games and a room 
where the men can go and smoke and read 
their papers in the mornings. And it struck 
me that Miss Gladys’ cousin — am I boring 
you? ” 

^‘No, Jack — Gladys’ cousin?” 

“That Parson Cyril Johnstone,” he ex- 
plained, “was really an awfully good sort, 
and might help me a bit with the men — on 
his own line, you know. And as the vicar 
wanted a curate, it seemed to fit in rather 
decently. I had no idea how awfully in- 
teresting that kind of thing could be. Why, 
now I know the men, and drop in to play a 
game of billiards with them, you couldn’t 
believe how jolly they are with me; and 
many of them more decent, wholesome kind 
of men than one’s own sort. I should so 
much like to show you the place, Muriel, 
and ask your advice about it. I’m afraid 
I’m an awfully poor hand at managing that 
kind of thing.” 

“Mr. Cyril Johnstone knows more about 
men’s clubs than I do!” she replied with 
half-averted head. Jack smiled. He was 


76 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

not used to Muriel in this mood; it was 
more like other women whom he had been 
used to. 

“You see,” he said, “Cyril Johnstone is 
all very well in his way, but an unecclesias- 
tical eye might be able to suggest more.” 

“I feel quite sure,” said Muriel firmly, 
“that my eyes will be able to suggest 
nothing.” 

“They must have changed then a good 
deal in the last few minutes,” said Jack 
coolly; “they have always suggested plenty 
to me.” Muriel looked up desperately, and 
saw Dr. Grant on the bank. 

“Row to the shore, please. Jack,” she 
said, “there is room for the doctor.” Jack 
set his lips together firmly. He had no in- 
tention of rowing to the shore for any such 
purpose. 

“Sorry,” he said; “I’m afraid it’s impos- 
sible.” 

“I must insist,” she replied coldly. 

“ Please don’t, for I hate to disobey your 
wishes,” he pleaded. 

“You overlook the alternative,’’ cried 
Muriel. 

“Muriel,” he said, “you don’t really mean 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


77 


it — I know you don’t wish it! He knew this 
would have been fatal with another woman, 
but he counted on her sincerity. She looked 
from him to the shore, and back again to the 
softly shaded water. 

“I must ask you to do it just the same,” 
she said finally. He turned the boat into 
mid-stream, and they floated awhile in si- 
lence. 

,‘Ht is the first time I have ever refused 
to do what you wanted,” he said at last, 
drawing a deep breath. 

“It is the last time I shall ever give you 
an opportimity,” said Muriel coldly. But if 
she had hoped to prevent further words her 
hope was in vain. 

“You told me once that you cared for 
me, Muriel, but that I wasn’t worth marry- 
ing. I have tried to make myself a bit 
more so, and now you are not going to tell 
me, are you, that you have changed your 
mind? ” She faced him steadily. 

“I can’t marry you,” she said. “Please 
don’t ask me questions. Jack.” 

“But I must,” he said frowning. “Why 
can’t you marry me?” She was silent. 
“You don’t love me?” 


78 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

“Perhaps I never did.’’ 

“Nonsense, dear, you’re not that sort. 
Tell me the truth — you do love me?” 
Muriel turned in exasperation. 

“Oh, yes, then, if you will have it. I do 
love you, but I’m not now or at any other 
time ever going to marry you!” 

They had forgotten the other boat and 
the river. A burst of merry laughter 
awoke them to the fact that they had drifted 
on a snag, and that the rest of the party had 
been watching them for the last few min- 
utes from the opposite bank. 

It was the doctor after all who rowed out 
to their assistance and took Muriel home 
after tea across the fields. Muriel was 
desperate. Jack had found means to say 
to her that he did not in the least believe 
her, and that he was not going to give 
her up. Gladys had found means of very 
pointedly, though with exquisite intangi- 
bility, expressing a state of mind anything 
but pleasant to her friend. The constant 
flow of bright, good-natured chaff, the 
utterly superficial, pleasant brightness of 
the boating party, gave Muriel a feeling of 
weariness and age. She felt glad to be with 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


79 


the doctor. He at least left her alone and 
seemed contented to talk or to be silent in 
an easy, effortless way. Perhaps it was be- 
cause in his profession a man '' learns to do 
his watching without its showing pain.” He 
talked chiefly about his sister, and when 
they got home advised her in an off-hand 
manner ‘‘to go and lie down.” 

“But I am not tired,” she cried, half 
vexed. 

“No,” he replied soothingly; “still you 
know it’s a warm afternoon; you would find 
it restful.” Muriel smiled submissively. 

“To tell the truth,” she said, “I think 
perhaps I am a bit tired,” and she went 
upstairs. 

An hour afterwards there came a soft 
knock at the door and Cynthia Grant came 
in. 

“They told me you had a headache,” she 
said apologetically, “and I came to see if I 
could do anything for you.” 

“It’s very kind of you,” said Muriel 
gratefully; “but do come and sit down. My 
headache was only an excuse for laziness, 
and it would do it good to be talked to.” 

Cynthia sat down near the sofa, and after 


80 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


a little conversation on general subjects, 
began in abrupt, curt tones to tell Muriel the 
story of her life. 

Why she told it, it would be impossible 
to tell, except that she wished to approach 
nearer to the girl who had won her brother’s 
love, and that such a confidence was the 
most painful sacrifice it was in her power to 
make. It was a strange story of how she 
and her brother had studied together side 
by side for their degree; of how she had 
advanced even farther than he, till at 
length, finding she was outstripping him, in 
one magnificent burst of sacrifice she had 
thrown the whole thing up; but how the 
fascination of her work proved almost too 
much for her, till in desperation she left 
her brother altogether, and went to the 
Paris studios to study art. Here she paused 
awhile as if reluctant to speak further. 
‘‘You don’t know,” she said, “what it was 
to have lived as I did, almost as a man 
among men. It was only we two — ^my 
brother and I — against the world, you know, 
and it’s a hard world. After I left him — I’m 
not going to tell you the whole story — there 
was a man who was a very fine fellow, an 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 81 

Englishman and an artist, and he fell in 
love with me before he quite knew — well, 
all the incidents of my life. Paris is rather 
a place for incidents, you know. He wanted 
to marry me. But, of course, I told him — 
and, I daresay, it wasn’t an ideal story. At 
any rate he told me he could not make me 
his wife, and I care far too much for him to 
be satisfied with anything else. So I went 
back to my brother, and I have been with 
him ever since. I help him with his cases, 
and, as his practice is rather large, and con- 
tains a good many poor people, I find 
enough to do. Are you horribly shocked. 
Miss Dallerton? ” 

“Have you given up your art?” said 
Muriel. The other girl went to the win- 
dow. She laughed nervously. 

“Art?” she said. “I never look at a 
picture if I can help it.” 

“And does your brother know?” 

“Everything; but it has made no differ- 
ence.” 

“ I wonder why you told me? ” said Muriel 
thoughtfully. Cynthia smiled. 

“You look as if people were in the habit 
of telling you things. Besides — I don’t 


82 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

know — it seemed to me as if you ought to 
know the truth if we were to be friends/’ 

I hope we shall be,” said Muriel softly — 
‘‘I hope very much we shall be.” 

“I think,” said Cynthia as she went to 
the door, ‘Hhat if I had known you, it 
might have been different.” 

Muriel puzzled thoughtfully awhile over 
the rather grim pair she had come into 
contact with. She had known very little 
of that great wide world of professional 
life. Society and the slums, though they 
were a great contrast, were not, she thought, 
so great a mystery. But though Muriel was 
distinctly broad-minded for a woman, it was 
impossible for her just at present to absorb 
herself in abstract problems when her own 
life presented such pressing personal ones. 
Her first misery at Gladys’ jealousy and 
misunderstanding seemed gone. To her sur- 
prise she had begun to feel almost a sense 
of relief. If she didn’t understand, it was 
plain there was not so very much to worry 
about. If one looks for too many things 
in one place, the few things one finds lose 
their significance. It is not one’s love so 
much that gets dulled as one’s sense of 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 83 

importance. The halo of expectation fails; 
next time one’s eagerness goes with slower 
feet, and is positively astonished if it ever 
gets met at all. So that now Muriel felt 
she had simply over-estimated both her 
friends’ characters and affection, and that 
nothing therefore remained but to clearly 
make Gladys see she did not intend to 
marry Jack Hurstly. Her responsibility 
ended there she told herself, after that she 
need not try to keep up this very unequal 
friendship any more. As for Cynthia Grant, 
she was a woman and old enough to know 
what to take for granted, and how not to 
be exacting. 


CHAPTER X 


"O Heart! O blood that freezes! blood that burns! 

Earth’s returns for whole centuries of folly, noise, and 
sin: 

Shut them in; with their triumphs and the glories and 
the rest — 

Love is best j!2 

— Robert Browning. 

Very firm and self-reliant natures make 
sometimes the natural mistake of under- 
estimating the power of passion. Their full 
self-control and constant watchfulness ig- 
nore the possibility of the strange touch of 
sudden lawlessness — the betrayal of the 
blood. That one could be one moment 
standing reason-bound, content, a soul at 
peace, and in another swept over the verge 
of thought into a sea of feeling, was absurd 
to Muriel. Yet the swift flash takes place: 
the world, like a curtain, rolls up, and all the 
conventions, the safeguards, the stationary 
landscapes, disappear! It was such a mo- 
84 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


85 


merit which took possession of her the very 
night that she had decided to give her lover 
to another woman. The evening had passed 
pleasantly, and the still glory of the summer 
night drew the party out into the dusk of 
the garden. Muriel slipped away from the 
rest and wandered into a little wilderness 
some distance from the house, wondering 
how best to carry out her plans, when 
suddenly all the blood in her body rushed 
to her heart, for there beside her stood the 
man she loved. It had been possible for 
her in the calm of loneliness and heartache 
to dispose of Jack, but now — the moon’s 
gold and silver gliding through the clouds; 
the thrushes calling heart to heart their 
breathless rapture in a liquid continuity of 
song; all the passion and the pain rushing 
into beauty, thrilled and throbbing with the 
heart of night — it was difficult to resist now. 
And the stars, how they shone down on 
love, each one a light struck from the royal 
conquest of their queen, the moon! They 
were enwrapped in that dream so boundless 
and so limited which for one breathless 
moment holds all the world can teach, and 
then scatters and breaks into the hundred 


86 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

lesser lights of life. A sigh broke the 
charm, and Muriel, wondering, withdrew 
herself from his arms, abashed and yet 
elated at her defeat, so much more sweet 
than any of the triumphs life had held for 
her. 

‘‘Now,” said Jack, smiling down at her, 
“are you going to tell me that you don’t 
care? ” 

“ I am afraid,” said Muriel, “ that it would 
not be very convincing if I did. It seems to 
me,” she added breathlessly, “as if before I 
had been living only on the outskirts of life. 
I did not know it was like that ! ” She looked 
at him wistfully, and asked humbly, “Is it 
quite right. Jack, do you think? ’’ 

“What, my dearest?” 

“To forget everything; to see nothing 
but the world a background, and that one 
great avowal drowning all the rest? ” 

“I think it must be,” said Jack. “Just 
because it’s so powerful it must be meant 
to^be good — in itself, you know — only some 
of us poor chaps don’t know how to use 
it.” 

Muriel shivered a little; there was damp- 
ness in the air; the trees seemed to quiver. 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 87 

She remembered Liz and the squalid scenes 
where the power which meant heaven to 
her had meant darkness and life-long misery 
to the other woman. Had she gained the 
world only to lose it? Jack wrapped her 
shawl tenderly over her shoulders. 

“You must go in, little woman,” he said 
practically. “Now you’re mine you shan’t 
run any risks, not even summer ones. Shall 
I speak to your uncle?” he asked her as 
they neared the little artificial lights of the 
house. 

“Not yet,” she whispered hoarsely, with 
a terrible fear in her eyes. Jack followed 
her glance. It rested on a young girl’s face. 
Gladys was standing close at the French 
window looking out into the night — desper- 
ate, wild, despairing. 

“There's something wrong with the 
child,” Muriel said quick to Jack — “bad 
news from home, I think,” for even at that 
moment she knew she must keep the other 
woman’s secret. “ Let me go to her, darling 
— good-night! It’s awful, isn’t it,” she 
said, “to be so selfish and so happy!” 

She caught her hand from him, hurry- 
ing into the house. “It’s wicked, it’s 


88 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

wicked/’ she murmured, ‘‘to be happy at 
all” 

Gladys called out over the approaching 
figure, “There is a letter for Captain 
Hurstly!” He came unwillingly forward 
into the light about the window. Muriel 
stood now with her hand in the girl’s looking 
back at him. Gladys herself seemed un- 
aware of the touch. She was smiling pain- 
fully; the “On Her Majesty’s Service” 
seemed to demand attention. 

Jack opened it, read it, glanced for a 
moment to Muriel, and placed it in his 
pocket. 

“What does it say?” said Gladys, and 
Jack, so absorbed by its purpose and the 
strangeness of the scene, never knew till 
afterwards that it was not Muriel who 
had spoken. He tried to make light of 
it. 

“Oh, I’m called off sooner than I ex- 
pected.” 

“ When? ” They both spoke at once this 
time. Again he only heard Muriel. 

“The fact is — well, to-night,” he owned 
unsteadily. Gladys stepped quickly for- 
ward; a little quivering light shone in her 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


89 


eyes; she caught her breath and half un- 
consciously held out her hands. 

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Captain Hurstly !” she 
cried; “and I wish you — I wish you the 
very best luck in the world.” He looked 
towards Muriel, but she was gone. He 
met the girl’s eyes again. His own felt 
unaccountably misty. Muriel was gone, and 
this little thing was wishing him the very 
best luck in the world. He pressed her 
hands gratefully. 

“Thank you, thank you awfully,” he mur- 
mured. “I think I’ve got it to-night ” 

“ Oh, where’s that tiresome Jack Hurst- 
ly?” cried a voice from the window. “I 
left him my fan to take care of, and ” 

“I’ve got it here, Mrs. le Mentier,” cried 
Jack hastily, stepping through the low 
French window with the missing fan in his 
hand. 

When he drove off an hour later to catch 
the midnight train it was Edith le Mentier 
who, side by side with Muriel, stood at the 
door to see him off. Looking back he saw 
that it was with her he had left “the very 
best luck in the world.” He had quite 
forgotten all about Gladys. From her 


90 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

window she watched him go on fire with 
love and happiness. His last words rang 
in her ears. She never doubted that they 
were meant for her. He had no time to say 
more then; but when he came back, not 
Muriel in all her beauty, nor any other 
woman, nor any other thing could ever come 
between them again she thought. And he 
would come back! The moonlight and the 
soft fragrance of the dusky night, what 
were they any of them but the earth’s 
pledges to her that her heaven should come 
again to meet that other heaven in her 
heart? 

“I have broken my fan,” said Edith le 
Mentier to Muriel as they went up to bed. 

So stupid of me, wasn’t it ; but at any rate 
I was not going to let Captain Hurstly have 
another one.’’ Muriel looked straight before 
her. 

“Another one, Edith?” she repeated. 

“Yes, stupid, didn’t you know men 
were in the habit of keeping people’s fans 
when they were — well, rather — don’t you 
know?” 

“I am afraid I’m rather dense — good- 
night,” said Muriel wearily. She stopped 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


91 


outside Gladys’ door, but there was no light 
or sound. ‘‘She’s asleep,” she thought, “I 
won’t disturb her,” and went on to her own 
room. It seemed rather strange to her that 
anybody could sleep. 


CHAPTER XI 


“My Faith?— 

Which Religion I profess ? — 

None of which I mention makeJ 
Wherefore so? And can’t you guess? — 

For Religion’s sake.” 

— George MacDonald^ 

The morning brought counsel to Muriel. 
She would say nothing. Jack would not re- 
turn for a year or two, and in the meantime 
Gladys’ passionate little heart might have 
turned elsewhere, or in any case the quick 
pain of certainty be less. For herself she 
turned her eager mind anew to the work 
before her. Love acted as a spur upon the 
discipline of her life; it made the dark 
places plainer, and lit up with light and hope 
the saddest mysteries. She was one of those 
few souls in whom experiences can never 
conflict or stand in opposition to each other. 
She knit them link by link into a chain 
binding her closer and higher towards her 
92 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 93 

ideals. She never thought much about her 
difficulties until she came up to them, but 
when she once faced them they helped her 
afterwards. Edith le Mentier’s delicate in- 
sinuation she had felt a passing disgust 
at, and had straightway brushed aside. 
Jealousy and suspicion need darkness and 
a closed-up room; all Muriel’s rooms were 
open to the sky and bright with sunshine. 
Nevertheless when she looked at Edith le 
Mentier she felt an uneasiness she could not 
account for. 

The party broke up the next morning. 
The doctor and his sister returned to town, 
while the others went to various other 
country houses, Muriel and her uncle going 
to Scotland for the remainder of her holiday. 
She was impatient to go back to her work, 
and the month passed in making arrange- 
ments and re-arrangements all involving 
voluminous correspondence. She wrote to 
Cyril Johnstone about Captain Hurstly’s 
club work, and as it was under parochial 
guidance, and various ritual stipulations of 
the young man’s were agreed to by the 
open-minded, slightly lax old vicar, he was 
soon settled in deeply earnest and energetic 


94 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

work such as the slow old parish had never 
seen before. Yet, as Muriel soon saw, the 
example of his stern habits and indefati- 
gable labor bore much fruit of admiration 
and respect, though scarcely that imitation 
which the zealous young priest expected the 
doctrines he would have died for to bring 
forth. He was not satisfied with Muriel’s 
generous explanation. “ It’s your doctrines 
that have made you, and if the people 
accept you, surely they are on the way to 
accept the doctrines? ” She returned a 
week earlier than her uncle wished her to, 
to encourage Jack’s ‘^Parson,” though she 
wrote to Jack that “your young priest 
doesn’t at all approve of me. He considers 
me a shallow society woman with a club 
craze, and shakes his head over my un- 
accountable friendship with you. He gave 
me splendid advice the other day, and I’m 
afraid I lost my temper with him, but the 
gravity with which he regarded me as he 
said, ‘My dear young lady, I am not speak- 
ing to you as a mere man, but from my 
priestly office,’ restored my sense of humor. 
. . . But no. Jack, I have a reason for wish- 
ing our engagement private. If it were any 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


95 


feeling of my own I would tell you, as it 
is you must take it on trust as you do me. 
Did you ever know Mrs. le Mentier very 
well?” 

Muriel wrote the last sentence and then 

crossed it out. He might think Besides, 

it was so absurd. She felt angry with her- 
self for having crossed it out — it was so un- 
important. She was surprised that night 
by a letter from Cynthia Grant, who had 
passed out of her mind with the press of 
duty and pleasure and life. Now, however, 
she awoke to a vigorous interest. 

‘'You will be surprised at what I am 
going to ask,” the letter ran, “but I hope 
that won’t shake you into the negative 
attitude that it does some people. I’m not 
going to tell you that I have any ‘religious 
views’ (and you will excuse me if I say 
that with most people they are little more 
— and distant views at that), because I 
haven’t; only it happens to please me to 
work, and I like you, consequently if you 
see any opening for a capable woman doctor 
who can give free ‘instruction’ to young 
women and practical help as well, let me 
know and I’ll come to you. My brother 


96 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

approves of my plan, and is going to get an 
assistant. 

“Yours, 

“Cynthia Grant, M.D. 

“P.aS. — I am particularly anxious for in- 
teresting tumors.” 

Muriel thought for a moment, then 
laughed, and wired back: “Please come, 
plenty of interesting tumors.” 

It was the first day of October before the 
two women settled to work. Life opened be- 
fore them full, arduous, engrossing. Around 
them in teeming factories and crowded dust- 
yards lived the people into whose fives their 
own brought knowledge, health, horizon. 
Year after year these sordid fives go on, 
working until dead-tired they stumble home 
and stand an hour or two in the close streets 
full of the dangers and temptations of the 
city; the holidays’ rough carnivals of over- 
feeding and drinking. Death, disease and 
sin the only breaks in the grim monotony 
of passing years, and now slowly and gradu- 
ally the change was taking place. From 
their work the young people streamed into 
the clubs, and were taught little by little 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 97 

lessons of life, courtesy, truthfulness, hon- 
esty; and these not by confronting them 
with strange virtues, but in developing their 
own, generosity, kindliness and the mar- 
vellous quality of ‘‘straightness,” the shield 
of so many of the poor. Men found 
billiards and other games, even cards, 
though gambling was not allowed; they 
could pass their evenings in social good 
fellowship without spending their wages or 
staggering home drunk. Their wives, too, 
in another part were not less well cared for, 
and their sons and daughters, kept out of 
the streets four or five nights out of the 
seven, were all the more inclined to stay at 
home on the other two. More than all this, 
living among them and sharing all they 
suffered was a “lidy,” who if she had chosen 
need never have done a stroke of work, or 
given a thought to anything but pleasure 
and ease and beauty. Though some of the 
more hardened jeered at her for her sacri- 
fice, the greater part were drawn in generous 
animation and gratitude into the work, and 
even those who jeered left her alone and 
would have fought any who tried to do her 
an injury. 


98 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

‘‘You only touch the fringe/’ Cynthia 
said to her one day. “So what’s the use? 
When you die it will all sink back again!” 

“Do you know,” said Muriel smiling, “I 
believe there is healing in the very hem of 
His garment, and that all these children in 
whom we start a larger life will in time 
permeate the apathetic multitude. As for 
ourselves, don’t doubt that when we die the 
work will not go on. Truly I should be 
very despairing if I dreamed that such tre- 
mendous purposes rested on my shoulders. 
We just fit in here, that’s all, and make 
the room larger for the next comer!” 

“Humph!” said Cynthia dryly; “after 
I’d made the room larger, I should prefer 
sitting in it myself.” 

“Nonsense,” laughed Muriel; “you would 
go on to make an addition to the house!” 

“My brother comes here to-night,” Cyn- 
thia stated abruptly. “ He’s going to bring 
a magic lantern for the men, and show them 
some of his Chinese slides.” 

“I’m so glad,” said Muriel gratefully. 

“Do you like him?” Cynthia asked. 

“Like your brother? Of course, very 
much.” 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 99 

‘‘So little as that?” cried Cynthia laugh- 
ing wistfully. “Oh, Muriel, Muriel!” Mu- 
riel colored and frowned. It was a sub- 
ject that visibly annoyed her, and which she 
tried to ignore. Dr. Grant had been very 
kind to the club. She had tried to believe 
he was interested in the work; it was a little 
baffling to find it hinted that it might be the 
worker. Cynthia watched her carefully. 
“Is there nothing besides the work?” she 
thought to herseK. She introduced the 
subject of a meal, and Muriel laughingly 
discovered she had forgotten her lunch. 

“You were writing letters at lunch time, 
weren’t you? ” suggested Cynthia. 


LofC. 


CHAPTER XII 


''Mercy every way 
Is infinite — and who can say?” 

There was a high west wind, and the dust 
swirled in clouds at the street corners. It 
was the kind of wind that never lets one 
alone, and is constantly drawing attention to 
the inconveniences of one’s clothing. The 
clouds were the dull brown of approaching 
rain, drifting in rags across the chilly sky. 
Cynthia Grant, who had been all the night 
before and half the day through fighting 
over the undesirable life of a mother and 
child, felt almost aggrieved that she had 
saved them both. ‘‘ What did I want to do 
it for? The whole system’s rotten! Why 
should it be considered mercy to prolong 
the agony instead of cutting it short? I 
don’t care for the woman; I hate the child; 
and, even if I liked them both, I don’t think 
their lives worth living. Why that drunken 
brute of a husband, who is always throwing 
100 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 101 

chairs at the poor thing, should say ‘Thank 
God!’ when I told him she’d live is a 
puzzle; he could easily have got some one 
fresh to throw chairs at, and the brat is 
only one mouth more to feed! I feel far 
more sympathy for that woman with ten 
children who told me she had had ‘no 
churchyard luck’.” She chuckled grimly 
to herself, and looked with a tolerant, 
amused gaze at the narrow alley, with its 
children at play in the gutters, wizened and 
old, with sharp, cruel, degraded little faces, 
slatternly women at doors, and skulking 
forms, that were scarcely human, lurking in 
corners and in the wretched rooms that 
were called “living,” a phrase more ap- 
plicable to the vermin that inhabited 
them than the half-human creatures that 
sprawled there. It was a bad alley, and 
the tough knotted stick in Cynthia’s hand 
did not look out of place. 

“Yes,” she thought to herself, “Muriel 
must be impelled by some pretty desperate 
attraction to give up her life to this sort of 
thing. It will make her old before her time. 
And as for the people here, her influence will 
probably cease as most influence does with 


102 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

her presence, and trickle off them as easily 
as water off a duck’s back. As for me, I 
suppose I might as well be here as anywhere 
else — now.” 

She looked at the sky and wondered what 
poets saw in it. It suggested to her nothing 
but the need of a broom. She was tired out 
when she reached rooms over the club, and 
glad of the tea Muriel had prepared for 
her. 

Muriel could not stay, for it was the time 
when her girls came out of the factory, and 
she must be ready to meet them. She was 
in one of her merriest and brightest moods. 
The gloom of the outside world could not 
touch her; even the sordid misery of the 
streets she had visited that afternoon only 
seemed to her vistas of future sunshine. 
She believed in no sympathy that stopped 
at sorrow; but it was because she believed 
so deeply in the reality of sorrow that she 
knew the certainty of joy. 

“What makes you so happy?” said 
Cynthia wistfully; “I see nothing to cause 
it.” Muriel wrinkled her eyebrows as she 
always did when puzzled. Geoff called it 
her “frowning for a vision,” and compared 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 103 

it to a sailor’s whistling for a wind. At 
last the partial vision came. 

'' I don’t see why it should be so difficult 
to be happy,” she said. “All that one 
hasn’t got is bound to come some day; all 
that one truly has will never go. And when 
one is quite sure of that oneself, it is beauti- 
ful to be able to encourage one’s bit of the 
world to go on waiting for their bright side. 
And how good and bright and dear things 
really are if we only come to look through 
them, and don’t make culs-de-sac of sor- 
rows. If love is the key of the world, joy 
is the hand that turns it, I feel sure. To 
make a creed of joy and a fact of love is to 
win half the battles, and be ready to fight 
the other half. But you know all this just 
as well as I do, and practise it far better — so 
what’s the use of talking? Simple things 
become mysteries directly you try to ex- 
plain them. Mind you rest and sleep. 
I’ll be back for supper,” and she disap- 
peared. It grew dark in the room after- 
wards. 


CHAPTER XIII 


“This world^s judgment cries ‘Consequences/ and 
leaves it to a higher court to take account of Aims/’ 

It was decided that one more effort should 
be made to rescue Muriel Dallerton. 

Mary Huntly, persuaded by her husband, 
wrote asking her for two days early in the 
season. 

Cynthia peremptorily ordered her to go, 
and she went. 

The weather in the opening charm of June 
would to most people have been better 
spent in the country; only London lovers 
felt the greater charm of the full, bright 
season set in the green freshness of the 
Park. 

There was a ball the first night, and 
Muriel danced in a dream of delight at the 
old easy ways, and all the beauties of sight 
and sound and sense. Gladys was away on 
a visit, so the return to civilization was 
marked by no jar of severed friendship. 

104 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 105 

A day spent on the river with one of 
those groups, where each one knows his 
neighbor well enough for associations to 
make past pleasures present ones, and yet 
not too deeply to be able to play lightly on 
the surface of personalities, made Muriel 
thirsty for more. It is true that there were 
strained relationships even there, though 
hidden with a cultivated ease; but she re- 
fused to see them, and let herself be soothed 
into a fairyland of fancies. 

Mary had arranged as a climax a tea- 
party in the gardens. 

“Of course,” she said apologetically, “one 
knows they aren’t private, but it’s the best 
place in the world to wander, if only on that 
account. Wandering I always think the 
chief charm of tea out-of-doors; it’s a com- 
pensation for one’s hair being blown about 
and the butter melting.” 

“ It all depends on having the right person 
to wander with,” suggested her companion. 

“Well, but what are all our social efforts 
but an attempt to find the right person — 
and then wander?” laughed Mrs. Huntly. 
“ It’s the magic lottery that makes London 
seasons, and keeps up house-parties ” 


106 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


‘^And finally limits one to a wedding 
ring,” interrupted one of the group. 

“Or charms one away from the limits!” 
ventured a daring young man to Muriel. 
She felt vaguely uncomfortable, these chil- 
dren of light played so near the brink of 
things. 

“I don’t think I quite know what you 
mean,” she said gravely. 

“ He doesn’t mean anything,” said Mary 
Huntly shortly. The young man turned to 
someone with whom he needn’t explain. 
Muriel wondered whether she would enjoy 
wandering in the gardens. “At any rate 
I shall not have the right person,” she 
thought. 

When the afternoon came the overpower- 
ing youthfulness of spring danced in her 
veins, and made it easy for the unpleasant 
to pass from her mind. She was with a 
little group who had not yet separated to 
wander, when she saw a woman whom she 
had known crossing the grass at a little 
distance from where they sat. 

“Why, there is Sally Covering,” she cried. 
“It seems years since I have seen her!” 
There was a moment’s awkward silence. 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 107 

Muriel looked in astonishment from one to 
the other. They all began to talk in the 
way of people who wish to ignore an impos- 
sible moment. Alec Bruce, who was one of 
the party, asked her an irrelevant question, 
but she brushed it aside. 

‘‘I am going to speak to her,” she said, 
wouldn’t if I were you,” said Alec. 
They spoke rapidly, and Muriel felt the 
color rush to her face. She felt annoyed 
with herself for speaking at all; but now 
that she had spoken she would not be a 
coward, so she walked the intervening 
space, and came up with the woman. 

‘‘Mrs. Covering! you haven’t forgotten 
me? ” she cried. The woman started at the 
sound of her name, and turned sharply. She 
was painted more than a little, and inartis- 
tically. She gave a queer little laugh as she 
took Muriel’s outstretched hand. 

“Dear me, no!” she said; “I am not the 
one who forgets. Miss Dallerton.” Muriel 
held her hand and looked into her eyes. 

“I suppose you will think me very rude 
to stop you like this!” she said; “but I 
should like so much to talk to you a few 
moments, if you are not engaged.” 


108 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

Mrs. Covering withdrew her hand. She 
was embarrassed, puzzled, and a trifle de- 
fiant. 

“ I cannot think what you wish to say to 
me. Miss Dallerton,” she answered; ‘‘but I 
am quite at your disposal for the next few 
minutes.” 

They walked together in silence for a 
moment, Muriel searching for the right 
word. She remembered the woman’s story 
now. She had left her husband, and made 
what the set she lived in called the “ dread- 
ful break.” Muriel could not quite remem- 
ber with whom; but people did not talk 
to her much about that kind of thing, and 
she had only heard the outlines of the 
story. What Muriel finally did say was 
not in the least what Mrs. Covering ex- 
pected. 

“You have never been to see me,” she 
said, “ in my new home.” 

“Oh! I don’t see people now,” said Mrs. 
Covering, with some bitterness; “I have 
got out of the habit.” 

“Mrs. Covering,” said Muriel, “I should 
like to be able to contradict a report about 
you. Will you give me leave? ” Mrs. 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 109 

Covering made an attempt to remain de- 
fiant. 

‘'Really, Miss Dallerton,” she began, “I 

cannot conceive ” But as she looked 

at the girl’s honest, tender eyes her lips 
quivered. “ It’s no use,” she said. “Please 
let us say good-bye here. It was very 
good of you to speak to me.” 

“But it isn’t true?” said Muriel. Mrs. 
Covering looked back to where through the 
trees her old acquaintances in ostentatious 
conversation pretended not to be watching 
them. 

“Well, anyway,” she said, “I was honest 
enough to leave my husband; if I hadn’t I 
might be over there now with your friends.” 
Muriel took her hand. She knew that some- 
times the human touch does more than the 
work of words. 

“ Will you come to me? ” she said. “ Will 
you promise to come to me when you want 
help? That you will want help I feel sure; 
for you are sad already, and you can’t help 
being more sad. Only don’t get desperate. 
Come to me, and we will find some way out 
of it together!” 

“I’m not sad!” said Mrs. Covering quick- 


110 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

ly. “I don’t see why you should think 
so. I’m happy — absolutely happy! Can’t 
you see how happy I am?” She bit her 
lip to keep it from quivering. “And as 
for their being an end — Oh, Miss Dallerton, 
there isn’t an end for a woman like me, 
there’s only — a new beginning!” 

“And that you will try with me?” said 
Muriel with an insistence that she herself 
could scarcely understand. 

“The ten minutes are up,” said Mrs. Cov- 
ering trying hard to smile, “ and I have an 
appointment. If it is ever possible I will 
come to you. Miss Dallerton — at any rate I 
shall never forget that you asked me. But 
I do not think I shall come.” 

She walked quickly away, and Muriel 
watched her in silence. She remembered 
that people had said Sally Covering was 
the best-dressed woman in London. She 
was still — ^for it is rarely that the little 
things change. We don’t forget to put on 
gloves because our heart is broken. Muriel 
felt a passion to be alone. Alone in this 
world of green, robbed for the moment of 
its fresh beauty; alone to face the problem 
that rose in inexorable, dark power in 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 111 

society as well as in the slums — the prob- 
lem which seems ever the same unrelenting 
enemy of joy and health and the beauty 
of life, and attacked the vital principles of 
all she believed in and hoped for. It was 
very difficult to go back to the group of 
merry idlers, dancing like butterflies over 
a precipice — butterflies intent on hiding 
from the unwary that there is a precipice. 

The buzz of talk increased as she drew 
near them. One lady put up her lorgnette 
and looked at her as if she were some 
new invention, and then turning said in a 
perfectly audible voice: “The paragon of 
virtue approaches, but I don’t see the lost 
sheep!” The group dispersed and left 
Muriel for a moment with her hostess. 

“Oh, Muriel, how could you do such a 
thing?” wailed Mary Huntly. “People 
must draw a line somewhere, you know. 
They may swallow the slums, but for you — 
before their very eyes ” 

“To speak to an old friend,” said Muriel 
quietly. “ Mary, you can’t blame me. It’s 
terrible! terrible! But just because it is, 
one can’t let it pass!” Mary shrugged her 
shoulders. 


112 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

“It’s hopeless to argue with you, child,” 
she said. “Yet even you must see that if 
people will do such things, they must be 
ignored for the sake of society at large.” 

“Society at large,” said Muriel bitterly, 
“which has caused the trouble, must pro- 
tect itself from its own victims, I under- 
stand, Mary.” 

“But what would you have one do?” 
said Mary Huntly. “What good did your 
speaking to her do? ” 

“It showed her that one cared,” said 
Muriel. “ Too late, I am afraid, in her case. 
But one must give them a chance to come 
back, or at least see where they have gone, 
and wake them up to the horror of it ! If 
you leave them to wake up too late for 
themselves, they will only fall into a 
deeper horror!” 

“A woman of that sort,” said Mrs. Hunt- 
ly “is incorrigible — simply incorrigible, 
Muriel.” 

“ Oh, Mary, you don’t mean that, I know. 
If it was some one you loved you would try 
to help her!” 

Mrs. Huntly turned with relief to welcome 
Dr. Grant. There was a positive pleasure 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 113 

in her greeting. It put an end to an un- 
pleasant situation. The only thing in life 
that Mrs. Huntly was afraid of was an un- 
pleasant situation. 

‘‘Here’s your doctor, child,” she said in 
an undertone; “ do go and wander.” Muriel 
accepted the proposition almost willingly. 

Geoff looked this afternoon so strong and 
unconventional — not even a frock-coat 
could make a man-about-town out of him. 
Not that he in the least answered her prob- 
lem. He would probably have refused to 
discuss it with her, and would certainly 
have disagreed with her in his conclusions; 
and yet there was something in the strong, 
sound spirit of the man infinitely refreshing 
to her after the cruel butterflies. 

It was with a new sense of trust and con- 
fidence in him that she wandered in the 
gardens. She realized at last that the 
parting of the ways had come between her 
old friends and her new life. Before she 
had been happy with them because her 
eyes were shut, now she saw beneath all 
that seemed gay and delightful a horror of 
selfishness, hardness and wrong. 

Mrs. Covering never came to her; but 


114 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

whenever she felt a longing to return to the 
old life the thought of her face and the 
knowledge of what the day’s wanderings 
had shown her came back with the same 
bitterness. 

She knew that the man with whom Mrs. 
Covering had made “the dreadful break” 
would soon be received back into society 
again. 

Mothers with marriageable daughters 
do not ask too many questions if the woman 
disappears — and the woman always dis- 
appears. 

There were times when Muriel almost 
envied Mary her faith in the incorrigible — 
it relieved her of so much responsibility. 


CHAPTER XIV 

"Saints to do us good 
Must be in heaven, I seem to understand: 

We never find them saints before at least.”. 

^'Really, Gladys/’ said Mary Huntly 
firmly, “ I think you should give some rea- 
son for the way you are behaving. I don’t 
want to bother you, but there was my own 
brother, Cyril ” 

“What’s the use of fast-days and a cope, 
Mary? I should give him beefsteaks on 
Fridays and sausages for vigils, and he 
would apply for a separation. Besides, I 
don’t care for him.” 

“There is still Alec Bruce,” said Mary 
Huntly slowly. “He would let you have 
your own way in everything, and never 
remember a fast from one year’s end to 
another. Muriel Dallerton was engaged to 
him once years ago, before she met Captain 
Hurstly. It was her fault entirely that it 

115 


116 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


was broken off, she was so down on 
him. By-the-way, what has become of your 
friendship for Muriel?’’ Gladys shrugged 
her shoulders. 

“Fancy marrying a man who would let 
you have your own way in everything. I 
should be bored to death. No, Mary, I am 
only twenty, and I really will marry some- 
body sometime I promise you.” 

She ignored the question about Muriel 
and got up idly to look at the paper. After 
a few minutes it fell on her lap, and she 
gazed with wide-open eyes straight in front 
of her. In print, so that all the world could 
see, ran an announcement of a severe hunt- 
ing accident to Captain Hurstly of the , 

with the addition that Miss Dallerton, his 
fiancee, and her uncle were soon to be on 
their way out to India to join him. It was 
thought probable that in the event of Cap- 
tain Hurstly’s recovery the young couple 
would be married out there. Gladys 
watched with fascinated gaze the skilful 
movements of the footmen removing tea. 
She never forgot the delicate traced pattern 
on the cloth, or the two muffins and a half. 
She carefully counted and wondered, with 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 117 

an interest out of proportion to its subject, 
what would eventually be their fate. It 
did not surprise her that Edith le Mentier 
should be announced, and she found herself 
smiling quite naturally at that lady’s little 
graceful poses, when suddenly she heard 
herself addressed by name. 

“Have you heard of Muriel Dallerton’s 
great coup? My dear child, you really 
should go in for slum clubs — they’re so tak- 
ing. I should do it myself if I could ever 
think of anything to say to those kind of 
creatures. And then one finds out that 
she’s been all the time engaged to Jack 
Hurstly, and is actually going out to India 
to nurse him through an accident and pull 
him safely into the bonds of matrimony. 
If I were a yellow journalist I could make 
the most touching headlines for it — ‘Death 
or Marriage? ’ ‘ If he survives the first acci- 
dent, will he survive the second?’ etc.” 
Gladys laughed. 

“But, Mrs. le Mentier,” she said, “per- 
haps it’s not so inevitable as all that. Mary 
was telling me she had been engaged be- 
fore.” There was a moment’s silence. Mrs. 
Huntly looked sharply across at her friend, 


118 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

and Edith subdued a smile. She could 
not resist, however, a little shot. 

“Once upon a time there was a naughty 
boy,” she said, “so Muriel put him in the 
corner, and he ran away. Isn’t that true, 
Mary?’’ The door opened and two maiden 
ladies, who were very charitable and rather 
plain, took up Mrs. Huntly’s attention. 
Gladys drew Edith to the window. 

“Is Captain Hurstly a good boy?” she 
said, smiling. Edith looked down at her 
caressingly. 

“One’s always good if one isn’t found 
out,” she said. 

“But if one is found out, one is much 
worse,” persisted Gladys. 

“I don’t think Muriel ever cared for 
Alec Bruce,” said Mrs. le Mentier. “Why, 
don’t you wish her to marry Jack?” she 
added, glancing at the girl tenderly. 

“I’m so sorry for the doctor,” smiled 
Gladys. 

“If Muriel knew,” Gladys continued, 
“that he was not such a good boy, she 
would be certain to put him in the corner 
even longer, because she does care for 
him.” 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 119 

"If she sees him now while he’s ill she’ll 
give in. We all do when Nature takes it 
into her head to punish,” mused Mrs. le 
Mentier. 

‘‘Then if she knew soon, she wouldn’t 
go? ” asked Gladys. “ I’m going to see her 
to-morrow,” she added. 

‘‘Dear Muriel,” said Mrs. le Mentier. 

‘‘Shall I take her any message from 
you? ” Gladys questioned. 

“I think,” said Mrs. le Mentier, ‘‘that I 
must go myself to wish her hon voyage.” 

Mrs. le Mentier went home and arranged 
two little packets of letters — letters that 
might have been burned, that ought to 
have been burned, only that some women 
have the fatal habit of holding on to the 
wrong things. 

Gladys went upstairs and cried, and hated 
herself, and bathed her eyes, and hated 
Muriel more. 

Meanwhile, quite unconsciously, Muriel 
packed her trunk and gave last directions 
to Cynthia about the club and its manage- 
ment in her absence, and in her heart she 
prayed, ‘‘O God, let him live — let him 
live.’’ 


120 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


And Jack Hurstly fought with death and 
heat and India through long hours of 
breathless night. 

The boat did not sail until evening, and as 
Muriel parted from Cynthia Grant to go on 
to her uncle’s on a cold, chilly November 
morning a hansom drove to the door, and 
Gladys, deeply veiled, sprang out. She 
greeted Muriel with her old tender affection. 
In a minute or more they were rattling away 
through the dim streets together. 

“ I can’t understand,” said Gladys at last, 
“what it all means. You cannot be break- 
ing your word to me — you cannot. I have 
trusted you so. But I have waited so long 
for an explanation, and it has never come, 
and now you are going to him.” Muriel 
looked steadily at her companion with un- 
faltering, sad eyes. 

“I made a terrible mistake,” she said 
gently. “For a while I thought it in my 
power to give to you that which can’t be 
transferred. But why should we talk of this 
now? — even while we speak he may have 
passed beyond it all!” Gladys wrung her 
hands together desperately. 

“He is mine,” she muttered — “mine — 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 121 

and I shall never see his face again!” 
Then suddenly she controlled herself. 
“You have broken your word?” she asked. 
“I have,” said Muriel. 

“Do you expect a marriage founded on 
broken promises to prosper? ” 

“Hush! he may be dead,” said Muriel. 
The hansom drove up to the door; the 
two girls looked at each other; Gladys did 
not get out, but as Muriel moved towards 
the house she leaned out of the window. 
“ I pray to God he is dead,” she said quietly, 
then she gave the address to the cabman. 
She left a card at Mrs. le Mentier’s door: 
“Muriel is with her uncle — they go to- 
night.” 


CHAPTER XV 


“Have you no assurance that, earth at end, 

Wrong will prove right? Who made shall mend 
In that higher sphere to which yearnings tend/’ 

“I HOPE, my dear,” said Mrs. le Mentier, 
“ that I am not too frightfully out of place. 
But the fog drove me to you — it positively 
did. Mystery is so more-ish, and you know 
how dreadfully curious I am. When were 
you first engaged to Jack, dear?” Muriel 
smiled. 

don’t know, truly,” she said, “for it 
feels now as if it was always.” 

“Then it must have been very recent. 
Recent things always feel like that,” said 
Edith. She sank down before the fire and 
began to warm her hands; the rings on 
them gleamed and glittered with an almost 
malicious sparkling. “It is very brave of 
you to marry Jack,” she murmured, smiling 
— “very brave. I hardly think I should 
122 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 123 

have had the pluck to if I were single 
again.” 

Muriel looked in front of her. She was 
counting the minutes; every one seemed a 
slow, aching century separating her from 
the man who might be dying. It was a 
refined mode of torture to have to talk of 
him. She began to understand the feeling 
of a caged wild beast. As an expression it 
is trite, but as an emotion it possessed her 
as original. 

“You are not very consistent, are you?” 
suggested Mrs. le Mentier with a little hard 
laugh. “We none of us are, I suppose; 
only it’s rather disappointing to us wicked 
ones when one of the saints back down. 
Being so deficient ourselves we expect so 
much more of them. It’s the shock that 
one feels when a really good cook fails in his 
favorite dish.” 

“I’m afraid I’m not consistent, and I’m 
sure I’m not one of the saints,” said Muriel 
with a little strained smile. “ What do you 
mean, Mrs. le Mentier? ” 

“Once on a time,” replied her companion 
critically, regarding her dainty hands, “there 
was a girl who wouldn’t marry a man — 


124 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

there’s nothing so very astonishing about 
that, you’ll say; it’s happened before and 
it may happen again. But she wouldn’t 
marry him because she found out that his 
record showed a stumble or two. One may 
consider her a little fastidious, but one re- 
spects her. The man behaved very nicely; 
he respected her too. But then there came 
another man, and human nature made her 
forget all about his record, which, when you 
come to think of it, is very natural, and not 
at all to be blamed. It is a pity to be too 
fastidious, but one can’t perhaps respect 
her as much.” 

“Mrs. le Mentier,” said Muriel, rising to 
her feet, “will you kindly tell me what you 
mean?” Mrs. le Mentier slowly began to 
draw on her gloves — they fitted her to per- 
fection — but she remained seated. 

“You might ask Jack when you see him 
— if he is well enough to be bothered with 
such unimportant things — if he remembers 
four years ago this last July. You might 
ask him if he would like you to see his 
correspondence at that time. You might 
laugh with him, when he is convalescent, 
over these letters. I have them in this 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


125 


little bag here, which when I heard of your 
engagement seemed better in your hands 
than mine. You might,” said Edith, hold- 
ing out her hand to Muriel, and smiling 
her sweetest smile, “tell Captain Hurstly 
that his old friends have not forgotten him. 
Good-bye, my dear Muriel; hon voyage — my 
best respects to your uncle — don’t trouble 
to come downstairs — do you know the last 
good remedy for mal-de-mer ? — you never 
suffer from it? That’s right; a speedy 
return, my dear, and mind you don’t forget 
my little messages to Jack when you see 
him — good-bye ! ” 

Muriel waited until the door was closed, 
then she went and looked at the letters. 
She knew the handwriting; she hungered 
for a sight of any words from him; and she 
looked at it now as if she was looking at it 
for the last time. Then she sat down where 
Edith le Mentier had been sitting, and tore 
them up one by one and threw them into 
the fire. Muriel had scarcely finished when 
Sir Arthur came into the room. 

“Muriel!” he cried in a tone of justifiable 
displeasure, “I have told you before never 
to put paper into the fire. Do you know 


126 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

you endanger our lives by your carelessness? 
Letters should be put into the waste-paper 
basket, not made bonfires of! Have you 
got your trunks packed, child, and all your 
arrangements made? We start in another 
hour.” 

‘‘Uncle Arthur,” said Muriel quietly,“you 
will think me very strange, I know, and very 
wilful, but I’m not going to start to-day. 
I’m going back to the club to-night. I — 
I don’t think I am feeling very well.” 

Expression for the most part is a dis- 
tinctly limited faculty, and those who carry 
it to its bounds in the ordinary occurrence 
of life find nothing left to say when the 
occasion transcends their experience. Sir 
Arthur Dallerton was dumb ; he made 
several efforts to speak — he put his hand to 
his heart — he stared at the ceiling — ^he was 
almost startled into a prayer — finally he 
gasped out: — 

“You wicked girl! Send my man to 
me,” and closed his eyes. 

Muriel escaped. He had not tried to 
combat her decision; he was in fact very 
much relieved not to have to go. He had 
only submitted to the mid- winter journey 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 127 

because it was expected of him — but he 
was surprised, horribly surprised. There 
is something very shocking to an English- 
man in any sudden change: to Sir Arthur 
Dallerton it amounted to a crime. Muriel 
had surprised him, and he could not forgive 
her. 

It was dark when Muriel drove back to 
the club that night, but the fog had lifted 
and the stars were out. There was some- 
thing in the street lights and noises that 
awoke in her the tremendous emptiness the 
world can hold. It was a shadow, a delusion, 
a mere dim, spectral mist, the background 
for an infinite weary pain that made the 
real pivot of the universe. She almost killed 
herself with self-reproaches. What was she 
that she should blot out the glory of her 
lover’s world for the words of a jealous 
woman? — for a mistake in the past — a sin if 
you choose. It might be a sin. If he had 
sinned all the sins, if he was sin itself, it 
didn’t matter — she loved him — loved him — 
loved him! And the great steamer with its 
iron speed might even now be leaving the 
docks, and she had set her face against him 
like a flint, and there was no turning back. 


128 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

Life had placed before her the old choice of 
love and duty, and though passion justified 
of reason rose with double power to storm 
the fortress of her will, and last, and bitter- 
est of all, the traitor within called to her to 
give way for hope’s sake, life’s sake, love’s 
sake, when it seemed for another’s good — to 
release one she would have gladly died to 
comfort — to gain that which in all the 
world she most desired for his sake, for her 
own, for the apparent good of them both — 
(Oh, how the traitor clamors at the gate, the 
traitor with those eyes, that voice !) — all the 
glowing world of hers, the infinite golden 
gladness of love — even with those to oppose 
and madden her, she shut her hands tight, 
and with a wordless, inexpressible prayer 
lifted up her soul. With most the struggle 
comes before decision, with many at the 
point itself, but with some few it is after 
the decision is made and when there is no 
turning back. So Muriel struggled now, 
though at the moment she had been wrapt 
as it were apart from all uncertainty in the 
cloud of renunciation. 

“Muriel!” Cynthia stood before her, 
petrified. Had she had news it was too 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 129 

late? She drew her towards the fire, and 
Muriel sat down and looked at her wistfully 
as a child might. 

'‘I think I had better tell you all about it 
now,” she said, ' ’though I feel sure you will 
not understand.” 

‘‘You have been doing something foolish, 
I suppose,” said Cynthia curtly. “Well, 
what is it?” But she drew very tenderly 
the girl’s jacket off, and smoothed her hair 
with gentle hands. 

“I have given Jack up,” said Muriel 

wearily, “because Edith le Mentier ” 

she stopped. “Oh, I can’t explain,” she 
murmured. “The words don’t mean any- 
thing, but — but, Cynthia, I couldn’t marry 
a man who had once loved, or thought he 
loved, that woman. I could not trust a 
man whom I felt was weaker than I. If I 

had children ” she paused again. “You 

see I knew a woman who married, and the 
man was a dear fellow; but he had been 
weak, and the strain was in him — and he 
was weak again. When I was engaged to 
Alec Bruce she said to me, ‘It’s not of so 
much importance to avoid bad men — 
they’re danger signals we aren’t blind to — 


130 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


but for God’s sake never marry a weak 
one. ’ ” Muriel caught her breath with a 
little dry sob. 

“Oh, you little idiot, you little idiot,” 
cried Cynthia with flashing eyes. “ What’s 
another woman’s, any woman’s, all other 
women’s experience to one’s own heart? 
Love, and take the consequences — there’s 
nothing else; it’s the only thing worth 
while. Why should you condemn yourself 
and Jack to a death in life because of that 
wretched woman? — besides, you don’t even 
know if it’s true! It’s madness, Muriel — 
madness. He’ll marry somebody else, and 
turn out a mere do-nothing, and you’ll wear 
your life out in another five years. And it’s 
all useless, reasonless, cruel. And then 
you’ll pray for his soul, and expect me too, 
perhaps. But I shan’t! Can’t you see 
you’re driving him back to her? ” 

Muriel dragged herself to her feet. “You 
forget I believe,” she said very slowly, “in 
the life of the world to come.” Then cover- 
ing her face with her hands she burst into 
tears. 

Cynthia Grant wrote that night to her 
brother: “I don’t know whether it’s any 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


131 


use, Geoff, but she’s broken the whole 
business off between herself and Jack 
Hurstly. She’s desperate, but determined. 
It’s all for a mere nothing. I cannot under- 
stand her; but I won’t let her work herself 
to death if I can help it. She was a fool 
ever to have cared for him, and more of a 
fool not to have married him. It would be 
difficult to know which we do more harm 
with, we women, our hearts or our souls — 
‘Where a soul may be discerned. ’ ” 

But Muriel was on her knees all night 
praying that he might live and she might 
be forgiven. 


CHAPTER XVI 

Winter come, can Spring be far behind!" 


It was a day when all hope of spring was left 
behind — withered in a black northeaster — 
when every one unfortunate enough to be in 
England longs for the south of France, and 
every one who has been out of England com- 
pares it unfavorably with other climates. 

Cynthia had left Muriel with a frightful 
cold and the club accounts, and had gone 
out to buy her some violets. They had 
heard that morning from Mary Huntly that 
Jack was recovering, though the fever re- 
sulting from the accident had necessitated 
sick leave. He would probably have got 
Muriel’s letter by now. Cynthia looked 
longingly at some impossibly expensive 
roses, when she heard a man’s voice behind 
her. 

‘‘By Jove! Cynthia!” Her heart leaped 
from January to June. She turned her 
132 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 133 

head slightly to face the obtruder — a deli- 
cate, fine-looking man with the eyes of a 
poet, and a chin which it would do some 
poets good to have. It took a moment for 
them to get over the memory of the last 
time they had met. It had begun to rain a 
little, and people had put up their umbrellas 
and pushed on more rapidly than ever. 

“ What do you want? ’’ he asked, looking 
from the girl to the window. 

“What can you afford?” said Cynthia, 
laughing. She was wondering what people 
wanted to hurry for on such a lovely day. 

“I am very rich,” he responded. “Honor 
bright ! I could buy over the business. I 
sold my last picture for — I can’t tell you 
how much, it might stir up your demon of 
independence. I’m going to get you the 
roses.” In two minutes he came back 
with them in his hand. “By the way, 
you might as well put up your umbrella, 
mightn’t you, it seems to be raining?” he 
said. 

“Oh, so it is,” said Cynthia absently. 
They stood together uncomfortably, know- 
ing that if no good excuse arose they would 
have to part. 


134 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

'‘Don’t you think a cup of tea would be 
nice?” he suggested. Cynthia nodded her 
head decisively. 

"Yes,” she said, "and muffins.” 

" Do you remember,” said her companion, 
as they turned towards a possible restaurant 
"those dear little French cakes and ” 

"I don’t remember anything,” said Cyn- 
thia sternly, "and I’m not going to.” 
Leslie Damores laughed. 

"You even forgot,” he said teasingly, 
"just now that it was raining!” 

" I thought you were in France. I didn’t 
know you were ever coming back to England 
again,” said Cynthia a little doubtfully. 
She noticed that he had not asked her what 
she was doing, and it hurt her. She would 
volunteer no information. They sat down 
by a clean table in a warm inner room; 
neat-capped maids fluttered here and there; 
it was very restful and very English. To the 
artist who had not been in England for 
eight years it was home, and the girl who 
held the roses in her lap filled in the picture. 
He studied her face carefully. 

"You’re awfully changed,” he said at 
last. Cynthia laughed. 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 135 

“ I was twenty-two when I saw you last, 
and now I am thirty. I was never one of 
the dimpling kind that stay young either; 
as for you — you’re a man, so it’s different. 
But” — her voice grew strangely gentle — 
“you’re not quite the same, you know, 
Leslie; fame has come to you, and you look 
more of a fighter, and yet not quite so 
hard.” 

“Strange, isn’t it, that youth should be 
so exacting — with its impossible whites and 
blacks — and that the more one roughs it, 
and the harder knocks one gets, the more 
generously shaded it all becomes,” he said, 
watching her with keen, eager eyes. She 
turned her head away and played restlessly 
with the flowers in her lap. “It could 
never change as much as that,” she thought. 

The muffins were the nicest she had ever 
tasted, the white-capped maid the prettiest, 
the tea the most refreshing. It all passed 
so terribly soon, and through it all they 
laughed and chaffed each other like two 
schoolboys in the slang of the Paris studio. 
It appeared that Cynthia had not forgotten 
quite so sweepingly as she asserted; they 
were too afraid of being in earnest to do 


136 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

anything but talk nonsense. They left the 
little place reluctantly, Leslie Damores 
feeing the white-capped maid beyond the 
dreams of avarice. She decided that he 
must be American. The rain had stopped, 
and wintry sunset gleams warned Cynthia 
of the hour. 

“Fm late,’’ she said; ‘‘you’d better call 
a hansom.” He hesitated before he asked 
where he should tell the cabman to drive. 
Cynthia set her lips. “He might have 
spared me that,” she thought. He was a 
delicate fellow, and he shivered slightly in 
the cold. It was this that settled her. “I 
am working with a friend of mine in the 
slums,” she said hastily. “Here is my card 
with the address on it; look us up some day 
if you can spare the time — good-bye.” 

He went off whistling like a boy with his 
hands in his pockets, wondering when 
might be the earliest he might go to her, 
and upbraiding himself for his wish earlier 
in the afternoon never to have set foot in 
London. 

Cynthia came into the little dark lodging- 
room like a fire, a whirlwind, and summer 
lightning all in one. There were the flowers 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


137 


to arrange, lamps to be lit, the supper to 
get. Muriel watched her with surprise. 
This magnificent woman, with wide-open, 
happy eyes, strange, sudden smiles, that 
came and went, and air of life and sunshine, 
was a transformation from the cold, stern 
woman with the grim and almost repellant 
attitude of hard reserve. She was sweet- 
ened, softened, glorified, and she looked at 
Muriel as a mother might look at her child. 
The evening was full of club work, and even 
there Cynthia showed herself brightly. As 
a rule she “had no patience with the girls,” 
and ruled more by fear than love, mingled 
with a sort of good-natured contempt. But 
to-night there was a new look of friendliness 
in her eyes, and her voice grew kind and 
gentle as she explained some simple medical 
rules of health, giving the girls object-lessons 
in bandaging, showing them how to check 
hsemorrhage, so absorbed and interested 
herself that in spite of themselves the girls 
drew near and listened. One of them, a 
tall, slender girl of some fifteen years, with 
already the face of a woman of thirty, 
pushed her way to the front. 

“ Oy siy, can you do hany think for a little 


138 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

fellar with a bad back? ” Cynthia nodded 
shortly. 

Don’t interrupt the class; you can bring 
him to me afterwards,” she said. 

The girl with a coarse laugh pushed 
through her companions to the door. It was 
a strange scene: the large room of the old 
factory, clean and bright, with a blazing 
fire; a work-table on which lay piles of 
bandages and splints; groups of rough, 
strangely garbed, out-of-elbows women, 
each with a large curled fringe, under which 
the tired eyes appealed to one as strangely 
unnatural, and, in the midst of them, trim, 
erect, commanding Cynthia. Orders, ques- 
tions, explanations ringing out. She stood 
like a disciplined sergeant amongst a throng 
of raw recruits — and recruits they were, let 
into the great army of humanity with no 
safeguards, no training, or only the most 
elementary, all dreary, purposeless, hacking 
their way through life. Only now and then 
into this rank-and-file of the world dipped 
their more splendid sisters who knew the 
aim of it all, and could teach them the 
means of attainment. There, under the 
flaring gas-jets, in the midst of the strange, 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 139 

teeming life of Stepney, horrible, oppressive, 
marvellously primitive, naked of the veneer 
of civilization, two women labored to bring 
light and help. Cynthia felt strangely up- 
lifted. Her heart was singing the song 
‘‘The stars sing in their spheres.” She did 
not feel the hopelessness of it all. 

After the class was over she was about 
to lock up the club and go back to Muriel, 
when the girl who had interrupted the 
class entered again carrying a bundle in her 
arms. She placed it very gently on the 
table. 

“’Ere’s the little fellar,” she said quietly, 
Cynthia pulled back the blanket and started 
with surprise at the picture before her — a 
baby boy of three years old, his head a mass 
of black curls, and underneath great blue 
Irish eyes. His face, flushed with recent 
sleep, looked up at her. The girl seeing 
the admiration in her face smiled proudly. 
“ ’E’s all I ’ave,” she said. “ Mother left ’im 
to me to see to three years since, for father 
'e went off with another woman, and she 
took it to 'art, mother did, so she died. 
Think likely ’e’ll git better, miss? ” 

Cynthia lifted the child into her anns. 


140 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

There was no mistaking the cruelly twisted 
spine. He might live two years, or even 
three, but it was a bad case — incurable. She 
looked from the beautiful baby face to the 
eager, passionate look in the girl’s eyes, who 
was hungry for an answer. Cynthia felt 
angry with the hopeless tragedy of it. Pos- 
sibly Muriel might have known what to 
say; for herself she raved against the in- 
vincible spirit of maternity, at once the 
torture and compensation for all who love 
the little ones. 

“ Does he suffer much? ” she asked. 

“ ’E do cry hawful sometimes, pore little 
chap. Can you do hanythink, miss? ” 

“Do anything? I daresay I can make 
him a little easier, but it’s a very bad case.” 

“ Do you mean as ’ow ’e’U never get any 
better? ” 

“I’m afraid not, Carrie.” 

“Do you mean as ’ow ’e’ll die?” There 
was an awful intensity in the question. 

“He may live some time yet.” The girl 
wrapped the child up in the blanket; the 
fierceness in her eyes did not prevent the 
gentle touches of her hands. 

“I ’ate God, so there! an’ I ’ate the club! 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 141 

an’ I ’ate you and the other lidy ! I ’ate you 
all!” she cried hoarsely. Then suddenly 
the anger died out of her face; she turned 
hopelessly to the door, pausing irresolutely 
she asked again in dull despair, ‘‘Then there 
isn’t hanythink as you can do? ” 

“Very little, I’m afraid.” She drew the 
blanket closer round the child and passed 
out into the night. 

It was late and Muriel had gone to bed. 
Cynthia came in and sat down by her. 

“Do you think a man would ever trust a 
girl a second time? ” she asked. 

“That would depend, wouldn’t it,” said 
Muriel thoughtfully, “upon the girl’s char- 
acter, and the attitude towards the broken 
trust, and how long ago it had happened, 
and what she had done in the meantime?” 

“Do you think it possible if she was 
different that he would love her again?” 
Muriel sighed. 

“I would have married Jack,” she said, 
“if he had been different, but he was the 
same. I suppose it all depends on whether 
one’s power of detachment is strong 
enough.” 

“You’re very tired, dearest,” said Cyn- 


142 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

thia, ‘‘and I shouldn’t bother you; but — 
but I suppose you pray, don’t you? ” 
Muriel smiled; she did not say she had done 
nothing else since she had forfeited her 
life’s happiness. 

“Yes, I try to,” she said. 

“Then,” said Cynthia, “perhaps you 
might as well pray for me. Good-night!” 


CHAPTER XVII 


Our mind receives but what it holds — no more/’ 

People whom everybody considers tender- 
hearted and good-natured do not like to 
wake up to the fact that they are neither. 
It takes a good deal to wake them up to it, 
and they are apt to be indignant and in- 
credulous even then. Gladys had always 
been considered particularly, gracefully un- 
selfish. People might think her a little 
astonishing and unconventional, but this 
they put down to her American training; 
as for being underhand, cruel and grasping, 
no one would have dreamed it of her, and 
she least of all of herself. Love is a teacher 
of many lessons, and tears away all screens; 
there is no room left for anything but the 
real. 

Love and pain together are the two world 
forces for sincerity, and Gladys’ sincerity 
was not pleasant to look at. She was pos- 
143 


144 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

sessed with the one desire — Jack. She 
wanted him; she hated everything and 
everybody else. Right and wrong became 
two faint, inadequate words; she would 
have stopped at nothing to gain her ends. 

Even the dramatic instinct which had 
carried her through emotional friendships 
made her attractive and alluring to those 
to whom she was utterly indifferent, devout 
and regular in her religious attendances, 
eager and sympathetic over the miseries of 
the poor, they were all swept away. She 
planned, plotted, schemed and lived to 
meet and win Jack Hurstly. 

For the sake of meeting him she made 
friends to a far greater extent with Edith le 
Mentier. She smiled in tender graciousness 
upon Alec Bruce, she treated Sir Arthur 
Dallerton when she met him with the 
greatest interest and respect. 

It was through him she learned first that 
Muriel was not going to India, second that 
her engagement with Jack Hurstly was 
‘‘off,” after that she ceased to take any 
interest in him at all. People said it was 
time she was married. 

It took Jack a long time to realize that 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 145 

Muriel meant what she said. He wrote 
again, and it was not till she stopped an- 
swering him that he began to believe her. 
The key he held to the woman riddle says 
that ‘‘A woman who goes on saying no is 
easier to turn than the woman who says 
nothing.” India and the old influences of 
the regiment had undone a good deal of 
her training. 

Jack told himself he was a fool to have 
loved her, and agreed with the world’s 
verdict that she “really went too far.” In 
fact the world turned its back on her. She 
had had two good marriages in her hand 
and thrown them away; her society was a 
strain; she did unheard-of things; she was 
really better in the slums. 

Everybody told him he was well out of 
it, and though he was outwardly indignant 
at their judgment it took the edge off his 
sorrow. He grew rapidly strong, and 
hunted more than ever. He was not to be 
invalided home, and he had been very badly 
treated. He looked upon this as virtual 
absolution for whatever dissipations he 
might be led into. Even in the nineteenth 
century few men have found a better 


146 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

excuse than ''The woman Thou gavest 
me.” 

One evening as Jack sat smoking in his 
quarters, wondering lazily what sort of a 
drink it would be most possible to enjoy, 
a knock at the door aroused him from his 
thoughts, and gave entrance to a favorite 
young subaltern. 

"Hullo, Musgrave! — come in!” he said 
with warmth. " Have a drink? ” he added 
as the young fellow sank into a chair. 
Musgrave shook his head. "Anything 
up?” Jack asked with surprise. 

"Nothing particular,” said Jim Mus- 
grave. "My aunt’s coming out here, 
though. I shall have to sit up for her.” 

"Oh! I say that’s bad,” said his friend 
sympathetically. 

" She’s going to bring a mighty pretty girl 
out with her, though, to jam the powder,” 
said the nephew irreverently. " The fact of 
the matter is I believe it’s for the girl’s sake 
she’s coming. There’s an awful dearth 
going on in London — herds of pretty girls 
and nothing to gain by it, you know — I 
don’t know what England’s coming to — 
we’re so scarce — they say the returns after 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 147 

the season are something awful!” Jack 
laughed grimly. 

“I’m one of them/’ he said. “I didn’t 
make myself scarce enough it seems. Who’s 
your aunt, by-the-bye? Perhaps I know 
her.” 

“Mrs. Huntly. Her husband was a 
fellow of ‘ours,’ you know; but he got on 
the shelf, and they gave him some appoint- 
ment at home to hush him asleep with. 
We have an awfully short day, haven’t we? 
And a beastly hot one ! ” The young man’s 
eyes grew wistful, for he loved his profes- 
sion; and he had not been out long enough 
to grow stale, or to have his ambitions ad- 
just themselves to lower standards. Jack 
sighed. 

“It’s a bit too long for some of us,” he 
said; and he dutifully thought of Muriel, 
till the remembrance of a polo match trans- 
formed them both into enthusiasts, and the 
talk grew unintelligibly technical. 

It was not until Jim Musgrave rose to go 
back to his own quarters that Jack remem- 
bered to tell him that his aunt was an old 
friend of his, and to ask if the pretty girl 
was her cousin. Miss Travers. 


148 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


‘‘By Jove, do you know her?” shouted 
the surprised Jim. Jack nodded. 

“Good-night!” he said briefly, and .T im 
took his dismissal, wondering how well his 
friend had known Miss Travers. Jack 
remembered the look in Gladys’ eyes, and 
resolutely pretended that it meant nothing; 
nevertheless he was not altogether sorry 
he was going to see her again. He told 
himself it was because she was Muriel’s 
great friend. 

Then he went out to have a final look at 
the pony; it was necessary that it should 
be really fit for to-morrow’s match. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


Where will God be absent? In His Face 
Is light, but in His Shadow healing too/^. 

“My dear Muriel, 

“You and I have always been 
good friends, and though I have never said 
anything to you about your trouble over 
Jack Hurstly it has not been because I have 
not felt for you. I thought that you were 
very foolish to give him up. Still you were 
never really suited to each other, and it is 
better to give a thing up than to hold on 
to it too long. I think one of the saddest 
things is to realize how well one can get on 
without some one who seemed so absolutely 
necessary. Men always reach it soonest, 
for if they can’t attain their ideals they can 
satisfy their instincts, while we women have 
to rub on between the two and dress nicely. 
My husband wants to see India again — why, 
I don’t know — ^smells, heat, travel and infe- 
rior races, not to mention being cut off from 
149 


150 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

everything for months, and I’ve promised 
to accompany him, principally because it’s 
easier to accept than refuse, and Gladys 
seems so set on it. She has promised to 
give Alec Bruce his answer when she returns. 
It is positively a last flourish, she declares; 
and between you and me I think she means 
to try once more for the bird in the bush 
before settling on the hand one. 

“ It’s rather brutal of me to write of it to 
you, but though she is clever enough and 
blinds most people I feel certain she cares 
for Jack, and I am a little uncertain as to 
how he will act when he flnds it out. 

“ If pebbles were as rare, we should most 
of us prefer them to diamonds, I expect, 
and only a few would say, ‘Ah, but they 
don’t shine!’ How you will shake your 
head, dear! but, trust me, proximity and 
the hat that suits weigh a good deal more 
than a flne character with most men, and 
Gladys always chooses her hats well. 
Women of my age are past the time of 
romance (Edith le Mentier would scarcely 
agree with me). Legitimate romance, at 
any rate — if there is such a thing — is a little 
worn out, and I’m not one of the sort that 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 151 

prefer religion to rouge, yet to-night I can’t 
help confessing the game seems not worth 
the candle. Not much behind, and not 
much before, and very little for the mean- 
time. Still I should marry if I were you. 
You’ll have the compensation of saying 
‘Well, that’s done,’ and when everything 
else seems unsubstantial the solid inevita- 
bility of wife and motherhood keeps one 
steady. That’s my argument against free 
love — it’s not final enough, and the uncer- 
tainties are too great. I had rather myself 
have a broken heart and a settled position 
than a broken heart without one. Perhaps 
you will succeed in avoiding both. Don’t 
think I’m morbid — probably my dinner has 
disagreed with me. By- the-bye, the doctor 
says there’s something wrong with my 
lungs — but I don’t believe in doctors. 
Good-bye. 

“Mary.” 

Muriel read Mary Huntly’s letter over 
slowly with sad eyes. There was a hopeless 
ring in it, as if the plucky effort to avoid the 
admission of a life failure had almost proved 
too much for her. She had attained most 


152 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

things that a woman of the world wishes to 
attain: a good income, a convenient hus- 
band, a boy at Eton, and a fine figure for 
forty; she was very popular, even with 
other women, and she had a most capital 
cook. 

‘'Leslie Damores and I are going on a 
bus top to Kew Gardens this afternoon,” 
said Cynthia irrelevantly. “And I shall go 
to tea with him in the studios to see his new 
picture; he has called it ‘The Years of the 
Locust.’ I should rather like to see what 
he has made of it.” Muriel was still puz- 
zling over Mary Huntly’s letter. 

“ She is so fine,” she said. “ It must count 
for something, her pluck and dash and the 
way she faces things; it can’t be all shallow, 
or all selfish — and yet it does work death. 
Look at poor Mary. Her age of primary 
things has passed. She has run through 
most of the thrills, as I suppose we all do 
by forty, and now what’s left for her? She 
has been keeping yesterday’s manna, and 
she finds that it has gone bad!” Cynthia 
looked interested. 

“I think,” she said slowly, “that a great 
love is the only thing to fill a woman’s life. 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 153 

I don’t believe that would wear out, would 
it?” 

‘‘I suppose,” said Muriel thoughtfully, 
'‘that depends on how one uses it; one 
must carry things on to their farthest extent. 
I mean — it’s stifling to be satisfied. If we 
go on far enough we shall come to a vista, 
and it’s not till we get to see that things 
have no end that we are really beginning at 
all. It is what you can’t grasp makes life 
worth living.” Cynthia listened reluctantly. 

“But love,” she said again, “you can 
grasp that; and it won’t go, will it?” 

“All that’s best and highest in love you 
can’t grasp, I think,” replied Muriel. “It’s 
because one expects to do that that it hurts. 
The invincible thrill of things is only meant 
as a launching into life. After that friend- 
ship, comradeship, a blending of life to life 
and heart to heart becomes unconscious 
development. Paroxysms aren’t love, and 
they have their reaction; but love is beyond 
and through all, and even in the most sad 
and sordid moments gleams and throbs an 
impossible possibility! A thing always to 
strive for, never to attain!” Cynthia rose 
and paced the room restlessly. 


154 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

‘‘Oh, Muriel! Muriel!” she said, “you 

don’t know ” Then she stopped short, 

and went over and kissed her, an unusual 
demonstration from Cynthia. “You’re so 
good,” she said, “and yet somehow so re- 
mote from it all! I think I begin to see 
now why you didn’t marry Jack. I should 
have faced it as you did, but I should have 
read the letters, talked about them — and 
then married him!” 

“And been unhappy ever afterwards,” 
said Muriel softly. 

“Yes! but that’s nothing to do with it,” 
cried Cynthia impatiently. “ I acknowledge 
no afterwards. I would give myself body 
and soul to the man I loved, like Browning’s 
lady, even if he were the greatest rascal 
unhung!” 

“That’s a horribly selfish theory!” said 
Muriel with sudden emphasis, “and a very 
dangerous one. You would degrade your- 
self, hurt the man, and ruin future genera- 
tions, simply because of an effervescing 
passion, which soon becomes stagnant if you 
give it time enough. No one can afford to 
ignore consequences, least of all a lover. 
Why is it, do you suppose, that these girls 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 155 

of mine, living like animals, working like 
slaves, suffering like human beings, don’t 
oftener catch at this passion-flower of yours, 
and take the poison of it? Simply because 
they are face to face with the consequences. 
They can’t get away from themselves, and 
their life is visible and public. They know 
what a few days’ rapture implies — shame, 
pain, publicity, perhaps starvation. They 
know that to cut off your nose spites your 
face, however you may wish to make the 
surrender! You don’t risk a rapid when 
you see the rocks, only when the rocks are 
hidden; the consequences ignored, then the 
selfish, hopeless, aimless life gives in to its 
instincts; and though before the leap you 
may have ignored the consequences, it will 
not prevent the rocks beneath from grinding 
your life out after the fall.” She stopped, 
her eyes flashing with the intensity of all 
she meant. 

She had given little by little her life over 
to a problem; one that she hated, had 
avoided, and that even now racked her 
with its misery — but it absorbed her. 

Things cease to be bearable only when 
life is empty, and to Muriel her own sorrow, 


156 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

her own heart, had been filled and uplifted 
by full renunciative hours. Discontent and 
leisure walk hand in hand, wandering dis- 
consolate over a world teeming with open- 
ings and opportunities for energy and power. 
Then it becomes necessary to invent new 
games, and religion runs to melancholia — 
or Christian science. 

‘‘I don’t think Leslie Damores will ever 
marry me,” said Cynthia slowly. She 
looked suddenly older and more careworn. 
‘‘I — I don’t think I will go with him this 
afternoon.” 

Muriel put on her things to go to the club. 
Before she went she threw her arms around 
Cynthia. 

‘‘Dearest,” she said with glistening eyes, 
,“I don’t know what I should do without 
you.” 

“Pray more,” said Cynthia shortly. Mu- 
riel shook her head. 

“If you knew what strength you give, 
and how bright this all seems to come back 
to!” 

“Don’t! don’t!” said Cynthia sharply. 
“ For God’s sake go to the club and leave 
me alone!” 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 157 

Muriel went and understood; she knew 
that it had been necessary to say those 
words, and after they were said she could 
do no more. One can start a crisis, but one 
cannot guide it, and it is usually best to 
get out of the way. Cynthia sent Leslie 
Damores away that afternoon, and faced 
for the first time in her life the years that 
the locust had eaten. Her lover’s picture 
could not have been more realistic. 


CHAPTER XIX 


"Only for man, how bitter not to grave 
On his Soul’s palms one fair, good, wise thing 
Just as he grasped it.” 

— Robert Browning. 

Leslie went back to the studio bewildered. 
She had sent him away without excuses. 
He wondered blankly what he was being 
punished for, and why she was denied him 
in the present; and as Kew Gardens, unless 
one is a naturalist, is not the place one goes 
to alone, he sat down before his picture and 
thought about her in the past. 

He was young and full of ideals when he 
first met her. He believed in the possibility 
of a Galahad, and that all women were 
exquisitely good, except a sad few who were 
picturesquely unfortunate. He had had a 
good mother, two beautiful sisters, and he 
had only seen Paris in a veil. He met 
Cynthia in the studios; her glorious red hair 
and the wonderful way she looked at him 
158 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 159 

became the key to the universe. After that 
followed months of ideal companionship, 
and on his part at least unprecedented 
blindness. Perhaps she loved him for that 
most of all. Then she told him. He was 
horribly startled. He said surprised and 
terrible things, and then she looked at him 
— Oh that wonderful, broken, tragic look! 
— and went back to her brother. And he 
grew older, and wiser, and less surprised. 

He had not meant to find her in London. 
When he had, and they met again and yet 
again, and in fact even from the moment 
when she had told him where and how she 
lived, he had made the great decision. 

The locusts should eat no more empty 
years. If she could forget {could she forget, 
forgive at least?) that stammering judg- 
ment eight years ago, how happy they would 
be together I What noble, magnificent work 
would they not do — together — and now she 
had sent him away with no excuse. Had 
that self-made barrier of his fallen for 
another to rise? He smoked hard and rang 
the bell. There is always one way of finding 
out things if a man has sense and no false 
pride — to ask. He was going to ask, and 


160 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


he smiled grimly to himself as he thought of 
the answer she would give him — should give 
him! — if strength and power and purpose 
went for anything. The tea-things that 
were set out for her looked miserable as 
only neglected food can look, and the room 
lost in the gathering twilight seemed emp- 
tily expectant of the guest who had not 
come. 

Leslie Damores cared nothing at all for 
omens and less for gloom, and even the fact 
that he could not find his matches did not 
evoke a frown. He was going to see her, and 
he meant to see her, and he terribly over- 
paid the cabman’s fare. How many sullen 
looks and surly words do we not owe to the 
over-generosity of lovers, who appear to 
think that by tipping the universe they will 
earn the reward of Providence in the shape 
they most desire? Alas! we human beings 
are always misplacing our tips, and then we 
wonder when the raps that come to us seem 
to be misplaced as well! 


CHAPTER XX 


God is in all men, but all men are not in God : that is 
the reason why they suffer.’^ 

It was hot, with that intense silken quiver 
in the air which turns the atmosphere into 
a living creature. 

That certain twilight’’ moment was 
already beginning to ‘‘cut the glory from 
the gray,” and across the Indian garden 
strolled two figures scarcely conscious of 
the breathless life, so interested were they 
in each other. Gladys Travers, in a well- 
fitting gown, a cloud of something soft that 
sunk into a shower of lovely curves, led the 
way through the trees to a seat. 

“ I call it a summer-house,” she said. “It 
sounds so English!” 

“Ah!” Jack Hurstly answered half wist- 
fully, “you’ve already begun to hunger for 
home. We all have it, you know, and try to 
161 


162 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

call the most un-English things by familiar 
names, just to trick ourselves into thinking 
— Heaven knows what — that it isn’t quite 
so far away, I suppose.” 

“It seems hardly possible that we have 
been here two months,” sighed Gladys. 
“And it was so strange to find you 
here!” 

Strange, indeed, Gladys! after the care- 
succeeding stratagem and innocent pur- 
poseful planning that took you and your 
good-natured cousin so straight across 
India to the station (not so frequently a 
resort for English travellers), simply be- 
cause there this broad-shouldered young 
Englishman lived and rode and shot and 
spoke bitterly of life. 

“It was most lucky for me,” he answered 
honestly; “and I shall miss you awfully 
when you go.” 

“You are very fond of Mary, aren’t 
you? ” she said looking at the ground. 

“Yes, Miss Travers.” Gladys smiled. 

“You’re rather stupid, you know,” she 
said. 

“I think it’s you who are rather unkind,” 
he answered. “And what are you going 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 163 

to do with Jim?” Gladys frowned; the 
conversation at that moment was more in- 
teresting without Jim. 

“Do with him!” she began indignantly, 
and then suddenly she laughed and turned 
dancing eyes upon her companion. '‘Do 
you know,” she cried, “I haven’t the faint- 
est idea what to do with him ! What should 
you think?” 

“ He’s a very nice fellow. Miss Gladys.” 

“Then shall I marry him?” Captain 
Hurstly drew a long breath; it was rather 
like playing with fire. The sun sunk 
speedily in the west, and now in a glowing 
rose veil plunged behind the hills. Gladys 
looked up at him from under her long eye- 
lashes. There was something a little wist- 
ful in her glance. 

“Do you want me to marry him, please?” 
she asked. Jack looked from the sky to 
her face; it had caught the glow of the 
sunset. 

“I don’t want you to marry anybody,” 
he said simply. 

“Ah!” said Gladys, and there was a 
silence — dangerous, electric, full of un- 
spoken things. 


164 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

“You knew Muriel?” he said abruptly 
at last. 

“She was a dear friend of mine,” Gladys 
replied softly. 

“Was! Isn’t she now, then?” he ques- 
tioned. She blushed and looked away. 
“Won’t you tell me?” he asked gently. 

“I thought she was unjust — very un- 
just to you!” Gladys murmured. “It 
hurt me that she should misunderstand 
any one.” 

“You’re very generous,” he replied 
gravely. “But how do you know. Miss 
Gladys, that she did misjudge me? Perhaps 
she was right to have nothing to do with 
such a poor sort of chap.” 

Gladys sprang to her feet, her eyes 
flashed, and she shook a little, her voice 
was low and intense, and Jack, who rose 
to his feet also and stood opposite to 
her, was drawn into the circle of her 
emotions. 

“No! Captain Hurstly. She was wrong 
— ^utterly wrong ! ” the girl cried. “ What are 
we sheltered, protected darlings, brought 
up with closed eyes and within walls, to 
know of the world and man’s temptations? 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


165 


How dare we judge who have no stand- 
ards of comparison? And if we love” — her 
voice grew so tender it was like music — and 
if we love it is for man’s redemption, not for 
the satisfaction of our own, thin, misty 
ideals! And it should be the crown of our 
life to raise the man we love from lower 
things, and trust in his love to leave them 
for ever far behind ! ” She moved nervously 
back to the seat, and turned that she might 
still half face him. don’t know what 
I’ve been saying,” she said breathlessly. “I 
am afraid it must sound very silly and fool- 
ish to you, and rather — rather uncalled for; 
but it has always seemed to me that women 
like Muriel, who think God’s tools not good 
enough for them, do a terrible amount of 
harm.” Jack took a step forward and 
looked down at her. 

“ If there were more women like you,” he 
said huskily, “there would be fewer men 
— like me. Miss Gladys.” Gladys smiled a 
little. It was difficult for her to be serious 
for long. 

“Then,” she said, “it’s certainly a good 
thing that I’m unique.” . . . 

“My dear child! you know perfectly well 


166 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

that this is the most unhealthy time to 
be out in. Go in at once and dress for 
dinner! Really, Jack, I should have 
thought you would have known better!” 
— Mary Huntly shook her head at him 
reproachfully. Gladys lifting her eyes up 
to Jack, with a mixture of amusement and 
regret, turned gracefully and passed into 
the house. Mary Huntly, for all her sage 
advice, stayed out in the fast deepening 
darkness. 

They walked for a little in silence towards 
the gate. Mary turned over in her mind 
what she should say to him. It was hard — 
extremely hard — and, worse, it looked dis- 
agreeable. She was used to doing difficult 
things, but as a rule they had delightful 
effects. She very much doubted as a 
woman of the world whether what she had 
to say would have any effect, but as a 
woman a little beyond the world she knew 
she ought to say it. 

“My dear boy!” she said as they reached 
the gate, “that girl doesn’t ring true.” 

“What do you mean, Mrs. Huntly?” 
Jack asked sternly. “Are you talking of 
— Miss Gladys? ” He made that fatal half 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 167 

instant’s pause before her name that marks 
a lover. 

“You have made one mistake already in 
falling in love with a woman too good for 
you,” she answered quietly, “don’t make 
the worse one of falling in love with a 
woman — not good enough! Good-night! 
I think you had better not come in after 
dinner this evening.” 

Jack would have stayed and insisted on 
further explanations, for he was perplexed 
and angry — there’s nothing that makes a 
straightforward man so angry as perplexity 
— ^but Jim Musgrave who was going to dine 
with them came up, and in a mixture of 
greetings and farewells he had to go, but 
as he went he said very distinctly: — 

“Mrs. Huntly, may I come in to-mor- 
row?” Mrs. Huntly saw in a flash it had 
been no use. 

“Oh, yes!” she said. “What a lot of 
moths you have in this climate of yours. 
Good-night!” 

The gorgeous moon, the thin low whisper 
of the tropic night, the rustling, murmuring 
life, which rose from the earth to the low 
sky above, seemed something of a new birth 


168 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


to Jack as free from the fetters of an old 
love he paused on the brink of a new, and 
because it was new imagined there would be 
no fetters. 


CHAPTER XXI 


“She crossed his path with her hunting noose; and 
over him drew her net/^ 

Gladys was the incarnation of sprightli- 
ness; her shimmering green dress made her 
look like some beautiful heartless naiad of 
the woods. 

When dinner was over she sang softly to 
Jim, letting her eyes rest on him with a light 
caressing smile. Her own world had turned 
to paradise. She was playing with sunbeams 
on a golden earth. It was impossible for 
her to be anything but charming. 

Mary was very tired. She sat and talked 
with her husband about the boy at Eton; 
for a while at least she washed her hands of 
Gladys. 

Finally the music stopped. Gladys’ 
hands sunk into her lap, and Jim looking 
at her in an adoring simplicity set about 
for words which were not too common to 
present to his goddess. 


170 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

say” (the invocation seemed a little 
modern) ‘'that’s an awfully ripping dress 
you’ve got on to-night.” 

“ Do you like it, Jim? ” It was impossible 
for her to help the emphasis. It had been 
said of her that if she were left alone in a 
desert she would flirt with a camel. Jim 
would have sold his soul for a compliment, 
but could only repeat: — 

“Awfully!” 

“Are you fond of being a soldier, Jim?” 
she asked. She was wondering why Jack 
Hurstly did not come. 

“I think it’s the grandest profession in 
the world!” he said proudly. “People 
don’t do us a bit of justice except when 
there’s a row on, and then they praise us 
for the wrong things. They don’t under- 
stand that a man must be a decent sort of 
chap to win the respect of his men; and 
there are fine chances, you know, that a 
fellow gets on the frontier to show what 
he is made of. To hush up a disturbance 
or keep a district quiet, are pretty good 
pieces of work. I hope you don’t think 
we’re all of us brutes or blackguards. 
Miss Gladys?” 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 171 

“No, Jim — oh, no!” said Gladys softly. 
“ I think you’re the finest men in the world, 
the most chivalrous to women, the strongest 
and the gentlest — truest friend and noblest 
foe!” Jim thought it was too beautiful for 
words, also that it was original; but it was 
not exactly what he meant, and it put an 
end to the discussion. 

“How does Captain Hurstly get on with 
his men?” she asked. It was evident by 
her tone that she was not much interested 
in Captain Hurstly. 

“Oh, well enough,” said Jim doubtfully. 
“Only you see he had rather a bad time 
with a girl at home, and that rather put him 
off his work, I think. He doesn’t seem as 
interested as he used to be.” 

“I don’t believe he cared for her,” said 
Gladys shortly. If there is nothing else to 
do with a clumsy fact, one can ignore it. 

“Oh, yes, he did awfully,” said the un- 
conscious Jim. “I never saw a fellow so 
cut up before about a girl. She must have 
been a jolly decent-looking girl, too — I’ve 
seen her photograph.” 

“Really you’re very rude — you contra- 
dicted me flatly,” cried Gladys. 


172 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

‘‘Oh, but he did, you know,” said the 
over-truthful James. “7 didn’t think she 
was so awfully fetching, though,” he added 
hastily, with the bright hope that jealousy 
of him might have promoted the frown he 
saw. Gladys yawned. 

“You’re very dull to-night,” she said, 
“doing nothing but talk of the uninter- 
esting love affairs of your uninteresting 
friends ! ” Jim flushed angrily ; he was con- 
scious that he had not introduced the sub- 
ject, but he was too loyal to say so. 

“I’m very sorry. Miss Gladys,” he said; 
“there’s something I’d much rather talk 
about.” 

“And that?” said Gladys, lifting uncon- 
scious eyelashes with innocent ease. 

“I think you know,” he said with the 
dignified gravity of extreme youth over a 
compliment. 

“If you mean me,” said Gladys smiling 
sweetly, “I think you’re very rude to call 
me a ‘thing,’ and it’s horrid bad form to 
talk about a girl, you know.” The rest of 
the evening passed in a pleasant, danger- 
ous fashion. 

At parting Jim wore the rose she herself 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 173 

had worn at dinner. It was the pledge of 
all dear, impossible things to him; it was 
the usual termination of an evening’s epi- 
sode to her — a gardener would have ac- 
cused it of blight. 


CHAPTER XXII 


"The truth was felt by instinct here — 

Process which saves a world of time/! 

Desperation, when it does not rave, be- 
comes a calm; and it was with an almost 
listless quiet that Cynthia, sitting opposite 
her brother in his office, told him she was 
going away. 

He nodded briefly, and went on writing 
prescriptions. He had not quite flnished his 
evening’s work. The boy was to deliver 
them to his patients. The room was bare 
and light, with the usual rows of medical 
books, long suggestive chair, and the sturdy 
boy standing near a forbidding cupboard. 

Cynthia’s eyes took in the surroundings 
as if they had been new to her. 

She had argued bitterly with her brother 
over having no lamp-shades, and the naked 
bright skeleton roused in her now a sense of 
irritation. Would Geoff never be done, and 
174 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 175 

why was he so little interested in her going 
away? 

But he had always been a man of one idea, 
she thought, and what interest he had was 
buried in his prescriptions. Ten minutes 
later he sent off the boy with a curt order or 
two, then he turned and looked at his sister. 

“Going away, are you?'’ he said. He 
might have been drawing out a shy child, 
or encouraging a nervous patient. Cynthia 
shrugged her shoulders. 

“So I told you.” 

“Have you thought why, or where, or 
when? ” 

“I am going to a place in Somerset on the 
red Bristol Channel, where they have mud, 
and sunsets, and one can be alone.” 

“The desire for mud is very modern, and 
sunsets only happen once a day,” he replied 
thoughtfully. “ And as for being alone, you 
couldn't be in a better place than London, 
you know, for that. People can't stand 
so much in the country. However, I dare- 
say a rest would do you good. Mind you 
take some books — light ones; and be care- 
ful where you go for milk — it's disgrace- 
ful how they adulterate it in out-of-way 


176 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


places.” He was giving her time, and ob- 
serving with keen watching eyes the lines 
of trouble and pain marked in Cynthia’s 
face. 

“Geoff!” she cried with a sudden wail 
in her voice, “I want you! I want you!” 
He knew that she did not mean him; but 
he took her in his arms and stroked her hair. 
Cynthia sobbed a little in a hard choked 
way; she could not let herself go completely 
even in a breakdown. 

“Shall we go to Paris?” he asked gently. 
“I have always wanted to study under the 
professors there.” He looked around his 
meagre office-room peopled with his love, 
his work, his dreams, to stay there another 
year till success lay in his grasp, to win life 
for his cases, each one meaning to him what 
a battle means to a soldier; all that went 
to make interest, satisfaction, attainment, 
must go because a woman wanted — another 
man. He did not mince matters, he only 
repeated the magnificent lie that rang better 
than most truths, “I have always hoped for 
a chance like this ! ” 

“But you couldn’t leave your practice?” 
she protested. 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 177 

‘‘I could get an assistant for a time to 
take my place. It’s only for six months or 
a year, isn’t it? ” 

“There’s Muriel — Geoff!” she reminded 
him. 

“You told me to get the idea of her out 
of my head — perhaps six months or a year 
will do it,” said Dr. Grant. He was smiling 
grimly to himself as he spoke. When a 
man attempts endurance it makes for some- 
thing very fine. When Cynthia looked at 
him she saw nothing but kind, half-amused 
and wholly sympathetic eyes. 

“I think it’s splendid you’re so placid,” 
she said; “I don’t believe you feel things 
at all.” 

“ I feel very much being kept away from 
my supper after working hard all day!” 
he laughed mischievously. 

“Oh, you poor, dear thing! I’ll see about 
it at once!’’ she cried running from the 
room. 

The doctor flung open the window wide 
and stood watching the streaming crowd in 
the dusk. The lights seemed alive against 
the dark masses of houses — impenetrable, 
mysterious, holding life-histories — and 


178 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

showing nothing but blank strong faces to 
the passers-by. 

The doctor believed in no God at all; but 
when he looked above the house-tops to 
the sky, peopled by myriad stars, he felt a 
moment’s emotion, a thrill of hope, courage 
and strength. 

God believed in him perhaps, and because 
he would not draw near with faith led him 
by his most unreasonable passion — love of 
humanity — nearer than he knew to the 
divine in humanity. 


CHAPTER XXIII 

“I am half-sick of shadows.”, 

Mueiel read Cynthia’s letter wonderingly. 
It was short, and merely contained her 
reasons for leaving Muriel for six months 
at least. By the end of that time Leslie 
Damores would have given her up, and she 
would be more fit to take up her life again. 
Muriel was not to tell him that she was 
ever coming back; she was not to overdo 
herself or live alone, and above all she must 
not give him her address. Geoff was going 
with her. Muriel sighed and frowned; the 
sigh was one of loneliness. She had got so 
used to companionship — Cjmthia’s, and gen- 
erally her brother in the evening. It was 
something to have a man to discuss things 
with sensibly even if she never agreed with 
him. She frowned because it was a little 
strange he had not written to say good-bye. 
He had got over caring for her that was 
179 


180 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

evident. She was glad of that — of course 
she was extremely glad of it. Suddenly she 
felt tired and discouraged. The girls had 
been unresponsive and tiresome in the 
Bible-class. She loved Paris; she could see 
its clean, broad streets filled with brilliant, 
rapid life, bright and gay and fresh, alive 
with incessant laughter. 

It was a damp, foggy evening and the fire 
smoked. They had such theaters in Paris, 
and then the studios! Muriel had studied 
there for six months in the pleasantest and 
easiest fashion. Sometimes the love of her 
old, careless radiant life, pleasure and 
beauty, and the ease of things made her 
catch her breath and remember she was 
twenty-seven, and her eyes were beautiful, 
and there was that couple downstairs 
drunk and quarrelling again! It was too 
late for tea, too early for supper, and if 
she lit the candle she would have to write 
letters. 

The door-beU clanged, and she heard a 
man’s voice. For a moment she thought it 
was Dr. Grant coming to say good-bye. 
Her hands wandered instinctively to her 
hair. No! — ^he asked for Cynthia. He 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 181 

must see her — ^but she was out. '‘Then 
Miss Dallerton” — the girl “would see.” 
The blackbeetle’s heavy footsteps paused 
outside her door. Muriel lit the candles 
and poked the fire. 

“Yes, I will see Mr. Damores,” she said 
smiling encouragingly at the girl. 

She felt less depressed because she had al- 
ready begun to sympathize, and yet she 
could not help feeling angry with Leslie 
Damores. 

He stood before her, tall, handsome, 
eager; she sat down and waited for him to 
speak. One of the most extraordinary 
things about her was her willingness to wait 
for somebody else, even her silence was an 
invitation. 

“Cynthia wouldn’t see me,” he began, 
almost boyishly. “ Won’t you tell me why, 
and where she is. Miss Muriel? ” 

“She has gone away, Mr. Damores, and 
left us both. It’s a case of double desertion, 
isn’t it?” she laughed nervously, for the 
look in his eyes was too strongly anxious to 
make the interview a pleasant one. 

“ Has she left you a message for me? ” 

“She does not wish to see you again,” 


182 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

said Muriel gravely. He was quite silent, 
with his eyes bent on the carpet. 

“ Then — and you — do you approve of her 
decision?” he asked slowly, his voice so 
different from his first eager greeting. It 
was tired and a little thick. An idea 
flashed through Muriel’s mind; she leaned 
forward suddenly. 

“Mr. Damores, do you care for her?” 
she asked. He squared his shoulders, and 
looked back at her steadily, but a little 
surprised. 

“Really, Miss Muriel, I thought — I 
thought it was pretty obvious!” he 
replied. 

“Then,” said Muriel, “I think very 
poorly of you for not wishing to marry 
her!” 

“But, good Heavens! Miss Dallerton,” 
he cried, now really astonished, “I want 
nothing so much! I came here, if you must 
know, simply for that purpose! and I find 
her — gone — leaving no traces, and, if you 
will excuse my saying so, a great deal of 
confusion behind her!” 

“ I certainly do feel confusion, not to say 
chaos, ’2 said Muriel smiling; “ and the worst 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 183 

of it is I can’t possibly explain. However 
one thing’s evident, if you want her you 
must look for her, for I have no address be- 
yond Paris. She hates writing letters, and 
it will probably be a month at least before 
she writes and gives it to me. Will you 
wait in London? ” Leslie Dam ores smiled. 

“I might find her in Paris, and I shall 
not find her here,” he said; '‘and when I 
do find her, I shall bring her back. Good- 
bye, Miss Dallerton; I’m glad I didn’t de- 
serve your scolding this time, it looked as if 
it was going to be a pretty bad one. Oh, 
but I was a fool for not marrying Cynthia 
eight years ago!” Muriel held out both 
her hands to him, her eyes filled with 
tears. 

“I am glad you are going to her,” she 
said. "I won’t wish you luck, because 
there is something so much better that you 
have got already; but I can’t help being a 
little sorry, for she will never come back to 
me again!” 

“Are you all alone?” he asked. 

“There’s my work,” she said; “and the 
blackbeetle, who is a great friend of mine, 
and looks after me very well.” 


184 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

‘‘Do you remember ‘The Lady of Sha- 
lott?’ ” he asked abruptly. “I always liked 
that last line of it, ‘God in His mercy lend 
her grace.’ Good-bye, Miss Dallerton.” He 
was gone, hopeful and strong once more, 
with the possibility of satisfaction within 
his grasp, and Muriel again alone. 

“ It was all very well for Launcelot to say 
that,” she thought, “but when she needed 
him most she had no loyal knight and true, 
the Lady of Shalott, and — and not even 
God’s grace would make her forget that!” 
And Muriel put her arms on the table and 
cried a little about Jack — at least she 
thought it was about Jack, but it was 
really that Cynthia’s hand was on what she 
herself had missed. The woman’s lips that 
bear no kiss of love seem formed in vain; 
even the angels must sigh for them — and 
not even the angels satisfy. Yet she had 
held it all once, and remorse and passion 
and pity mocked at her for having thrown 
life’s gift away. 

When the blackbeetle, whose other name 
was Catherine Mary, appeared again it was 
to bring supper, and a message from a poor 
woman that “ She was taken cruel bad, and 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 185 

would Miss Muriel come to her?” Muriel 
left her after a terrible four hours. The 
fight had given her strength, and the light 
in her eyes was wonderful. She had for- 
gotten all about the Lady of Shalott. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


“La vie est vaine: 

Un peu d^amour, 

Un peu de haine, 

Et puis — bonjour!” 

‘‘Really, Mary, it’s absurd to stay away 
from the picnic! And I simply can’t go if 
you won’t. That odious Mrs. Collins makes 
the most hateful chaperon, with her ‘ Come 
here, my dear!’ just at the wrong moments. 
WonH you come, Mary?” Gladys, in the 
most delicate of Dresden flowered silks, with 
a huge hat one mass of pale pink roses and 
black velvet, looked imploringly at her 
companion. 

She was a girl it was impossible to de- 
scribe without mentioning her clothes. One 
felt if she had worn a yachting suit with gilt 
buttons she would have looked pathetic. 
Mary Huntly took one of the little hands in 
hers. 


186 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 187 

“The truth is, dear— -but don’t, please, 
tell Tom — I had a slight haemorrhage this 
morning. Nothing much, it is true, but 
these tiresome lungs will bother me, and 
I know I ought to keep quiet to-day.” 

“You never used to be so fussy about 
your health, Mary,” exclaimed the girl 
petulantly. There is nothing that so tor- 
ments a brave woman as a gibe at nervous- 
ness. It was true that Mary had conquered 
her fear, but she knew it to be something 
that comes again, and would never while 
she lived cease to give up coming. She 
winced and let the girl’s hand drop; she 
had not voice enough to explain. The per- 
sistent cruel healthiness of the girl before 
her aroused in her a kind of defiance. 

“Since you are so keen, dear, I will go,” 
she said, “ but I hope they won’t expect me 
to talk!” She laughed huskily. 

“Tom is out shooting, isn’t he?” she 
asked Gladys later as they walked towards 
the carriage which was to take them to their 
destination. 

“How funny you are, Mary! You never 
used to be so interested in Tom’s move- 
ments,” laughed Gladys; “he won’t be 


188 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

back, I don’t suppose, till long after we 
are.” An hour later, by a half-ruined tem- 
ple, under the shade of great enshrouding 
trees. Jack Hurstly sitting beside Gladys 
asked her a little sharply if her cousin wasn’t 
very seedy. 

‘‘Yes, poor dear!” said Gladys with the 
wistful, pathetic look that had helped to 
draw Mary to the picnic; “and she’s 
so dreadfully plucky and determined, I 
couldn’t persuade her to stay at home with 
me. I can’t tell you how anxious it makes 
me feel!” 

Jack’s eyes grew tender over her. Hats 
of a certain shade cast sincerity in a be- 
coming glow over an upturned face. He 
wanted to help her, protect her, comfort 
her ! His vexation was transferred to Mary. 
It must be such a strain to go about with 
an obstinate, sick woman. Jim Musgrave 
sat by his aunt. All the rest had gone off 
somewhere — a general direction to which 
all picnics tend where there is no one to 
victimize the party with games. Gladys 
had promised to go and see an ancient well 
with Jim, and she had gone to see it — with 
Jack Hurstly; only Mrs. Collins and Jim. sat 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 189 

with Mary. Suddenly she put her hand on 
his arm. 

‘‘Jim — take — ^me — home,” she cried. It 
was the end of the picnic. 


CHAPTER XXV 

'God^s Hand touched her unawares/^. 


When Tom Huntly rode home with a big 
bag of game after a satisfactory dinner with 
a crony it was nearly twelve o’clock. Yet 
to his surprise the whole house was lit up, 
and there was an uneasy sense of motion 
and confusion. He dismounted and called 
for a servant. Suddenly he heard a woman 
crying. He let the horse go and walked 
into the house. 

“How can you expect me to go to her? 
No, I won’t! I won’t! Oh, it’s horrid! it’s 
terrible! — just when I was so happy too! 
No, doctor, go and sit with her till Tom 
comes! Oh, my God! . . . Doctor! here 
he is!” 

“ Where is my wife? ” said Tom Huntly. 
The words sounded to his ears like a quota- 
tion; it was absurd to suppose they could 
be his. He did not look at Gladys, dissolved 

190 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 191 

in frightened tears over the inappropriate- 
ness of the angel Death. The doctor spoke 
with the unreal cheerfulness of his profes- 
sion. 

“Another haemorrhage, Major Huntly. 
It is over now, but you must expect to find 
her a little weak.” Then, as Tom Huntly 
uncomprehendingly followed him, “It is 
my duty to tell you that I consider her case 
serious — very.” A nurse stood by the bed 
fanning her. A sudden remembrance of 
the boy’s birth (the boy at Eton) swept over 
him. 

She looked very young, with that old, 
bright something in her eyes that the last 
ten years of the world had managed to dim. 
She whispered his name. 

“Tom, come a little nearer.” He knelt 
beside her, and put his arms around her. 
They had wasted a lot of time. “ I wanted 
you so— Tom,” she whispered. “It’s been 
such a poor sort of thing, hasn’t it? What 
we might have been to each other, I mean? 
But it’s been all my fault, dear. I never 
knew a man that could have made me half 
— so happy. There are not many women 
who could say that of their husbands in our 


192 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

— world — are there, Tom?’’ She coughed 
till the slow breath came back. “ So you’ll 
not worry, Tom? ” she gasped. 

“Mary — Mary, darling — you won’t leave 
me and the boy?” It was frightful this 
want of time. She smiled bravely. 

“I’m so glad you care,” she murmured. 
“ Tell him — Tom — that his mother says she 
wants him to be — a gentleman — ^like his 
father.” The nurse stepped forward, but 
the doctor shook his head. 

“ There is no need,” he said, but he meant 
“There is no hope.” 

“Ah, Mary! Mary!” She opened her 
eyes again: she was much too tired to be 
frightened of death. 

God takes the ignorant, plucky souls who 
have fought the good fight, not quite know- 
ing why, very peacefully to Himself. 

“I should like,” she gasped, “more air.” 
The nurse came towards her bed with the 
fan in her hand, but before she could reach 
her a gust of wind strangely cool and fresh 
swung the curtains of the window, and 
Mary Huntly was dead, having passed from 
a life which stifled, limited and kept back 
all the highest and noblest in her to beyond 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 193 

the horizon where ‘‘Over all this weary- 
world of ours breathes diviner air.” The 
room was very quiet and still. The doctor 
after a few words to the nurse, engaging her 
for another case, went off to his quarters. 

Gladys composed two heart-broken notes 
to Jack Hurstly in her sleep, and Tom 
Huntly left alone -with the body of the 
woman he loved fought the old fight with 
the grimness of things. 


CHAPTER XXVI 

‘‘And Memory fed the Soul of Love with tears.” 

‘^Too late!” is a phrase holding the eternal 
knell of life. It sounds like a muffled peal 
even to those who hear it lightly said. To 
those who have lived through it, the worst 
of the battle passes before their eyes again. 
Many, perhaps blissfully, miss all that it 
means. They dare not, or cannot, face re- 
morse. That they themselves have pulled 
down their house about their ears seems to 
them an infamous impossibility. They for- 
get all their own cruel words, long neglect 
and unfair judgment, and only remember 
flashes of sunlight which they connect — 
probably quite falsely — with themselves. 
Their ‘‘yesterdays look backward with a 
smile.” 

Gladys never realized even as much as 
a tinge of shame. She cried a great deal. 
Mary knew how to manage things so beauti- 

194 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 195 

fully, and, better still how to manage Tom. 
There was a certain heavy awkwardness 
about Tom that Gladys didn’t like. It 
had the effect of putting her in the wrong, 
which was, on the face of it, absurd. Also 
he wouldn’t do what she wished without 
coarsely asking “Why.” Altogether, Mary 
had taken the edge off a difficulty; and 
Gladys hated difficulties almost as much as 
she did explanations. 

It was so dreadfully trying, too — Mary’s 
dying just then! Another week, perhaps, 
and it would not have mattered so much. 
The thought forced her to look into the 
glass. The crying had done no great 
damage; she would dress entirely in white. 
Jack would come round soon after break- 
fast to find out how Mary was. Oh, poor 
Mary! 

There was something so bald and primi- 
tive and earnest about death; whatever 
happened she would not be taken to see the 
body. She went out into the dining-room. 
Suddenly she began to be afraid of meeting 
Tom. 

Tom had passed the night of a thousand 
years; it comes once or even twice in a 


196 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

lifetime. He was looking very old and 
haggard. When Gladys came into the 
room he winced as if he had touched a 
snake. It was a very awkward meeting. 
Tom would have gone out of the room and 
said nothing, but there was breakfast — and 
the servants. By-and-bye there was only 
breakfast, and Gladys sitting where Mary 
used to sit. She was thinking that at least 
he might have shaved, and wondering if she 
dared to speak to him. It was very hot and 
still. 

“Did you know that Mary had had a 
haemorrhage before? ” he asked in the dan- 
gerously level tones of passion curbed. 
Gladys burst into tears. 

“ How can you speak of her in that heart- 
less way, Tom? ” she cried. He gave a queer 
httle sound that might have been a laugh. 

“Answer me,” he said. The question was 
how much did he know, and what was the 
safest lie? He saved her the trouble. 
“ Very well, you did know, then ! Now how 
long has this been going on? ” 

“ It was easy enough to keep it from you, 
Tom!” she said, with the brutality of a 
weak thing cornered. “ You never took the 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


197 


trouble to find out. Poor Mary made me 
promise not to tell you. She told me first 
in England that her temperature rose very 
night, but that she didn’t intend to make 
herself an invalid for that. She said you 
were the sort of man who hated invalids.” 
Tom broke a paper-cutter he had been 
playing with on the table. “ I don’t know 
how many hsemorrhages she had — not very 
many ; certainly not one for a long 
time ” 

''Certainly not one yesterday morning,” 
he interrupted slowly, a little pause be- 
tween each word. " Before you went to the 
picnic? ” Gladys looked desperately at the 
paper-cutter. There was something in the 
psalms about a green bay-tree that occurred 
• to her, not of course in connection with her- 
self. 

"No, she never said so. She wanted 
particularly to go to the picnic; she said 
(who was it that said women are no in- 
ventors?) that she would be so dull without 
you. I tried to persuade her not to go, but 
she would ” 

"I wonder,” said Tom meditatively, 
" how many lies you have been telling me? 


198 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

Don’t get angry, it really isn’t worth while, 
and it doesn’t matter in the least, you know, 
only you had better save some for your old 
age. You can pack your things, as we are 
going home next week.” He rose drearily 
from the table and made his way out of the 
room; he cared so very little about any- 
thing. 

He felt as physically tired as after a 
forced march. An endless expanse of days 
and months and years passed before his 
eyes — there seemed so much time now. 

Suddenly he thought of the boy ! — Mary’s 
boy and his. He straightened himself up; 
there was still somebody left to do that for. 
For Mary’s sake he would devote himself to 
the boy; it was tremendously worth while. 
He sat down and painstakingly wrote a 
letter that made his own tears come and the 
boy’s when he read it, and drew the two to- 
gether as nothing but sorrow and loneli- 
ness and love can ever do. It followed so 
naturally and plainly that if Mary wanted 
her son to be like his father, the father must 
try to be a better sort of chap. Remorse 
receded, and took with it the burden of 
hopelessness. 


CHAPTER XXVII 


“She was beautiful, and therefore to be wooed: 

She was a woman, and therefore to be won.’’ 

Gladys went into the garden, where it was 
coolest and shadiest, and sat, a lovely and 
pathetic figure, leaning, it is true, against a 
cushion with her listless hands in her lap. 

So Captain Hurstly found her. She had 
written the little heart-broken note, and 
she rose to meet him with quivering lips. 

^‘Oh, Jack, Jack!’' she murmured — in 
an abandonment of grief Christian names 
fall so naturally, and it sounded very sweet 
to Jack — ‘‘how good of you to come!” 

“Good of me?” — he held both her hands; 
she had given them to him unconsciously — 
‘‘ I think it was awfully sweet of you to see 
me — I’m so sorry, dear — so sorry!” The 
tears rolled down her cheeks. She looked 
very pretty when she cried, and it was very 
difficult not to kiss her. 

199 


200 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

“Mary was everything I had in the 
world,” she said withdrawing her hands 
with a swift blush, and sinking back on the 
cushions again — “mother, sister, friend. 
And Tom — Tom has been so brutal to me 
Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do!” 

“ Tom brutal to you? ” 

“Yes! he hates me. I’m sure I don’t 
know why. Perhaps he feels now he might 
have done more for Mary. She told me 
often how terribly lonely she was before I 
came to her. We are to go back to Eng- 
land next week, and I know too well what 
that means!” 

“What does it mean?” he asked looking 
at her long and carefully, the white dress 
that fell away from the little fair throat, 
the pathetic quiver of the dainty mouth, 
the hopeless, hunted look in the big dark 
eyes. 

“Oh, I can’t tell you!” she cried with a 
sudden gasp. “Don’t — don’t ask me!” 

“I must know,” he said firmly; “tell me, 
please.” The color swept over her cheeks, 
her eyes faltered and fell before his, her 
hands trembled in her lap. 

“Tom wants me to marry,” she said at 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


201 


last, “a man I can never — ^love.” She 
covered her face with her hands. ‘'Go 
away!” she cried piteously. “Isn’t it hard 
enough already without making me tell — 
you ! ” She gasped the word containing her 
passionate heart. She was in earnest now, 
that was why she hid her face; she knew 
that she would not be so pretty. 

The word that fell in the hot still morning 
lived ever afterwards in Jack’s mind with 
the heavy scent of tropical flowers, the rest- 
less quiver of the air, and the sharp metallic 
stroke of a coppersmith’s beak near by. 
She was unhappy, and pretty, and clinging 
— and she loved him. Had he any right to 
make her love him so, and then leave her to 
a bitter and miserable marriage? So pity 
spoke, and the beauty of the girl’s lithe 
form, the curl of hair just escaping the up- 
lifted hand, the delicate scent she used, the 
whole scene with its setting of the old hot 
Indian garden spoke to passion. And when 
pity and passion speak at the same moment, 
reason, sense, and self-control fade fast 
away. He took her hands from her face; 
she looked at him as a startled child would 
look; he felt the beating of her heart; he 


202 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

drew her closer to him, and she made no re- 
sistance. 

“Gladys, Gladys, will you be happy with 
me, darling? ” he asked her. 

“Oh, Jack!” she cried, “you never even 
asked me — if I loved you!” 

An hour later, radiant, triumphant, cruel, 
Gladys stood before Tom Huntly. 

“I am not going back to England with 
you,” she said. “ I am going to marry Jack 
Hurstly. I shall stay with Mrs. Collins till 
the wedding, and come home with Jack, for 
good.” Tom Huntly looked at her, alive 
and young! and upstairs lay the body of 
his wife, and the girl could be so happy! 

“Are you quite heartless?” he asked 
wearily. The insolence of her joy turned 
to weak self-pity, and she began to cry 
again. 

“Oh, poor, poor Mary!” she sobbed. 
“She so wanted to help me choose my 
trousseau!” Tom left the room, shutting 
the door after him. 

Jack went back to his quarters. He 
wondered why the scent she wore seemed 
so familiar. He remembered at last that 
Edith le Mentier had used it too, and he 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 203 

remembered at the same time with equal 
irrelevancy that Muriel never used scent. 

That evening he had a long talk with Tom 
Huntly. His friendship with Mary had 
been a deep and real one, and he thought 
Gladys must have been mistaken about 
Tom’s brutality. He was not that sort of 
man; and he thought Tom was equally mis- 
taken when he said rather doubtfully, “I 
hope you will be happy with Gladys; she’s 
not half up to the form of that other girl of 
yours.” 

Any reference to Muriel was peculiarly 
irritating to him just now. 

It also seemed that people who knew 
Gladys very well did not appreciate her so 
deeply as people who knew her slightly — a 
trait which is certainly a trifle unfortunate 
in a man’s future wife. But he had burned 
his boats, and he remembered how pretty 
she was, and tried to think it very natural 
that the day after his engagement he should 
find his fiancee playing love-songs on the 
piano to her very distant connection, Jim 
Musgrave. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


"Is she not pure gold, my mistress?" 

Jim looked at his uncle and said nothing. 
The two men were smoking on the piazza. 
It was late evening, the day before Major 
Huntly was to sail for England. He had 
just mentioned Gladys’ engagement, and 
found that his nephew knew nothing about 
it. Jim grew rather white, and the two 
puffed steadily at their pipes again. 

‘‘She ought to have told you,” said his 
uncle at last. ‘‘Does it make a lot of dif- 
ference? ” 

“Yes,” said Jim laconically. 

“I don’t want to bother you, old fellow, 
but I think I ought to know did she give 

you any reason to think ’’ Jim shook 

his head. 

“No — I was simply — a fool,” he said 
shortly; and then he added with a rather 
bitter smile “she wasn’t.” 

“But now, you know,” said his uncle, 

204 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 205 

you’ll shake it off, I hope; there’s as good 
fish in the sea, you know, as ever came out 
of it.” 

‘‘And they can stay there,” said Jim. 

“But you don’t mean you still care for 
her?” 

“Yes, sir, I always shall — whatever she 
does!” 

The night was radiant. Full in the starlit 
sky the moon poured forth a clear stream of 
light, bringing out the colors of the world 
thinly, not as the sun does, but with a 
strange, mystic richness all her own. The 
two men had not poetic temperaments. 
Nights and moons and stars were much 
alike to them, and they were not thinking 
just then so much of each other’s sorrows, 
chiefly of their own. Yet there was a very 
warm feeling of sympathy between them, 
and they sat for some time longer smoking 
in silent fellowship. At last Jim rose to his 
feet. 

“I shall be on duty to-morrow, sir,” he 
said, “so I’m afraid I shan’t see you again. 
You’ll drop me a line when you’ve reached 
home, and tell me how you find the little 
chap?” 


206 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


‘'Yes, Jim. I say, old fellow, I wish 
Mary was here to-night, she’d know what 
to say to you. I’m afraid I shall only make 
a mull of it — ^you’ve faced your guns pluck- 
ily about Gladys — don’t take it too hard; 
and if I could do any good at seeing your 
colonel about getting you some shooting 
leave ” 

“Thank you, sir,” Jim interrupted; “it’s 
awfully good of you. I think perhaps 
there’s an opening for me to go to the front 
again, a fellow of ‘ ours ’ is taken with enteric 
out there. I’ll get along all right — and you 
know what I feel about aunt Mary. She 
was too good a woman to make me lose my 
faith in them, and it wasn’t Gladys’ fault, 
tsir — it was all mine. You won’t blame her, 
will you? ” 

“Oh, I won’t blame her,” said his uncle 
shortly — “ good-bye.” 

“Good-bye, sir,” and Jim, sternly setting 
his shoulders with all an Englishman’s pas- 
sionate determination to suppress his emo- 
tion, passed out into the night. 

It was the same beautiful world when 
earlier in the evening he had enjoyed a talk 
with his lady-love, and had said that he 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


207 


thought the world was really ‘‘an awfully 
jolly place.” 

He would believe no wrong of her now — 
it is love’s creed for the young — only the 
world was a beastly hole — that was all; and 
it was hard lines on a chap to have to come 
into it whether he would or no. His grief 
rushed him into metaphysics, an unknown 
quality to Jim, and he felt more himself 
again when he had applied for leave — and 
got it — to be sent to one of the most un- 
healthy parts of India where there was a 
little row on. 


CHAPTER XXIX 


“ What matter how little the door, if it only lets you 
in!” 

Paris, always in a glitter, struck both Cyn- 
thia and Geoffrey as being almost too em- 
phatically the same. 

They separated after the dear, delicious 
lightness of the earliest French meal, one 
to go to the studios and try to get a skilled 
but unpractised hand in again, the other 
whimsically to the lecture-rooms, an atmos- 
phere congenial, but thin and uncolored 
to one fresh from the active fight. So the 
first week passed, and quite unconsciously 
they began to imbibe the gay French sur- 
face, the triumphant shrug at the disagree- 
able, the bright intensity of the absorbing 
present. It was not that they forgot or felt 
less, but as if straight from the seriousness 
of the downstairs rooms they had strayed 
into the nursery and were playing at being 
208 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 209 

children again. It was one morning on her 
way to the studio that Cynthia met an old 
acquaintance of hers, an emphatic Ameri- 
can girl, who exclaimed in the arresting 
tones of her countrywomen: — 

^‘Why, Cynthia Grant, is that you!” 
Cynthia turned smiling. 

‘‘Millicent!” she said, “in Paris?” 

“Why, certainly,” laughed Millicent 
gayly; “didn’t you know I was married. I 
couldn’t keep it up any longer. You re- 
member Clifton Perval? He was that set! 
I had to give in to him! But come right 
away home with me, Cynthia; I’ve the most 
perfectly lovely flat you ever saw!” Cyn- 
thia felt suddenly human. 

“All right,” she said, “I’ll give myself 
a holiday. So you are actually living in 
Paris. You always wanted to, didn’t you? ” 
“ Want to? I was just crazy. But I let 
my husband know I’d be planted here or 
nowhere! So we just came. Launcelot 

will be just as pleased to see us ” 

“ Who is Launcelot? ” laughed her friend. 
“ My little boy. Why, didn’t I tell you? ” 
Her bright, keen face clouded a little. “ Yes, 
I’ve got a child.” She paused flatly, and 


210 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

then fell back with ready gush on an easier 
line. '' Don’t you think Launcelot a real 
pretty name? I told Clifton I’d take 
nothing common. No William-George ef- 
fects for me! So his name is Launcelot 
Cummins Perval. Cummins was my name, 
you remember, before I married. Oh, here 
we are. Now isn’t it a charming location? 
It’s so sweet and central.” Cynthia nodded. 

They were taken up almost to the top of 
a high building. The fiat was evidently 
small and inexpensive. As they entered 
Cynthia was struck with the effect of an 
aggressive effort to conceal. Everything 
seemed unnaturally placed so as to hide 
something else, and to block views. There 
were a quantity of unnecessary things, and 
some very bad pictures. Millicent had 
never had much art though she had a great 
deal of talent, but the talent had deterio- 
rated and the art vanished. 

Sitting on the floor, his head a mass of 
dark curls, with wide, blue, astonished eyes, 
was a little fellow of about six, in quaint, 
tight black velvet trousers. He looked at 
his mother wistfully. 

‘‘You said he would come back,” he 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


211 


exclaimed sorrowfully; '‘but he hasn’t for 
hours and hours!” 

“Why, Launcelot, how silly you are,” 
cried his mother; “come here, right away, 
and shake hands with this lady. Aren’t 
you qlad to see mother come home so 
soon? ” 

The child rose obediently and advanced 
towards Cynthia. His eyes were heavy 
with the difficulty to express his thoughts, 
his eyebrows were knitted painfully. Cyn- 
thia’s eyes grew tender as they met his. 

“What have you lost, sonnie?” she asked 
gently. 

“Oh, it’s Tony that’s goned away,” he 
began eagerly. 

“The child’s bird escaped out of the 
window this morning,” his mother ex- 
plained contemptuously; “Marie opened 
the cage, or something. The thing squealed 
awfully; it’s rather a relief. Now, Launce- 
lot, you go back to your bricks, and mother 
will give you some candy by-and-bye.” 
But Cynthia held the child’s hand. 

“I want to hear about Tony,” she said 
firmly. The boy’s eyes were full of tears, 
but he controlled himself manfully. 


212 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

'‘If God has taken him/’ he said, “I 
think it’s very selfish. God has birds and 
birds, and I only had Tony.” 

“Why, Launcelot Perval,” exclaimed his 
mother in shocked tones, “whatever do you 
mean? You’re a very naughty boy to talk 
so; mother’ll have to punish you if you say 
such things.” The boy ignored his mother. 
She might have been an intrusive fly. He 
brushed her away. Cynthia understood. 

“But perhaps God didn’t take him,” she 
suggested thoughtfully. The boy’s face 
brightened, but clouded again. 

“He lives in the sky,” he said; “and that’s 
where Tony went. He must have flown 
straight to God, and I think God ought to 
have sent him back,” his lips quivered 
again. “ I’ve waited hours and hours,” he 
repeated mournfully. 

“ God has got such a lot of things to do,” 
she said, “perhaps He will send him back 
to-morrow. Don’t you think you could 
wait till to-morrow, Launcelot?” 

“Why, really, Cynthia,” laughed her 
friend, “ I can’t let you encourage the child 
in such notions. Now, look here, Launce- 
lot, if you will be a good boy, and not worry 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


213 


any more, I’ll ask papa to buy you another 
Tony.” She was a good-natured woman, 
but she missed the point. 

“Oh, but there isn’t another Tony,” he 
said looking at his mother reproachfully; 
“there aren’t two me’s nor two Gods, 
mama? ” 

“Oh, do be quiet, Launcelot,” she cried 
falling back on the dense weapon of her 
authority; “of course there aren’t two Gods. 
I shall send for Marie to take you away!” 

This threat closed the discussion. The 
child went back to the window, and gazed 
wistfully at the roofs, still wondering at his 
unanswered prayer. 

Millicent showed Cynthia her flat. Cyn- 
thia began to understand the pathetic 
concealments. They were very poor. 

“We manage to have good times, 
though,” Millicent explained. “We get 
around and see things. Men don’t like 
women being too economical, and I don’t 
believe in it myself. They just spend and 
spend, and then make a row over the bills. 
I don’t see why we shouldn’t spend too; it 
don’t make much more of a row, for they 
put it down to us anyway! But it’s very 


214 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

unfortunate our having that child!” She 
cast an impatient glance at the little fel- 
low in his odd-shaped, out-grown clothes. 
“ Sometimes I positively don’t know which 
way to turn. His father and I don’t know 
what to make of him — he’s that funny! 
It doesn’t rightly seem as if he was our 
child!” 

“He’s a dear little fellow,” said Cynthia 
pityingly; “I wish you would let me take 
him home for this afternoon, I would bring 
him back at bedtime. I shall be all alone.” 

“ Why, that’s real sweet of you, Cynthia,” 
said Mrs. Perval. “Clifton and I want so 
much to have a nice afternoon with some 
French friends of ours — Monsieur le Comte 
de Mouselle and his sister. He’s the most 
perfectly charming man. Do you know 
him?” Cynthia shook her head. Millicent 
tittered. “He’s just wild about me,” she 
said, “but of course I know how to deal with 
him. They can’t take me in, you bet! but 
I’ll be real pleased,” she added, seeing 
Cynthia’s attention wander, “to let you 
have Launcelot for this afternoon as soon 
as Marie can get him ready.” Ten minutes 
later the two left the flat. Mrs. Perval, her 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 215 

hands on her hips, talking to them as they 
went. 

‘‘Now, Launcelot, be sure you’re a good 
boy, and mind what you say. Cynthia, 
don’t let him worry you — please. J’ll be 
real pleased to see your brother again, 
Cynthia. Give him my love, and tell 
him ” 

Whatever she was to tell him was lost on 
the way downstairs. Cynthia and the boy 
felt suddenly free, their eyes sparkled, they 
clasped each other’s hands tightly — the 
world lay before them, the great glittering 
Paris world, rich with delights. A French- 
woman with bright, bright eyes passed 
them. The boy pressed a little closer to 
Cynthia. 

“The streets roar so,” he said fearfully. 
“ Do you think it’s at all likely there’s any 
lions about?” 

“They are always careful to shut them 
up,” Cynthia explained, “when boys go out 
with friends.” 

They had a wonderful lunch and lots of 
marvellous French cakes, and if there were 
any lions they remembered that “friends” 
didn’t hke them, and kept within bounds. 


216 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

Cynthia felt for the first time that she could 
breathe without it hurting her. To be alive 
and separate is so terrible to love. The 
child’s hand in hers made her look past 
herself into a world more beautiful and in- 
finitely higher than her dreams. 


CHAPTER XXX 

''Oh; the light, light love that has wings to fly!” 

Dr. Grant had not found the wrench of 
parting much easier than his sister, but, like 
many people with deep emotions, he had 
found room enough to keep his unhappiness 
apart from his everyday work and appear- 
ance, and to take a certain amount of placid 
enjoyment out of his new mode of living. 
The difficulty was in completely deceiving 
Cynthia by the constant holiday aspect she 
expected of him. Sometimes the shadow 
fell between them, and they would be silent 
and apart, then both would bitterly blame 
themselves, pity each other, and rush back 
into the holiday aspect again. They would 
have been far happier if they had been less 
reserved. 

It was about six when Geoff, returning 
to their apartments, heard the noise of talk 
and merry laughter in his sister’s room. He 
217 


218 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

opened the door hastily to find Cynthia on 
her knees before the fire roasting chestnuts 
with a curly-headed youngster, who laughed 
the more at his appearance, as if it were a 
a part of the game. 

‘'This is the Knight Sir Launcelot,” said 
Cynthia gravely, waving her hand towards 
the boy. “Launcelot — the King!” Launce- 
lot nodded. 

“I always ’spected him,” he said earn- 
estly, “and now God must have sent him 
instead of Tony. Do you think kings are 
nicer than birds?” he added anxiously to 
Cynthia. 

“Not most of them,” said Cynthia pre- 
paring to shell a hot chestnut; “but mine’s 
a very nice king, as nice as any bird I should 
think.” 

“ Things when they’re very nice fly away,” 
puzzled the thoughtful knight; “if kings 
was as nice as birds they might fly too!” 
He drew down his brows and gazed at the 
solid and substantial doctor. “But you — 
you don’t look as if you was a very flying 
person,” he finished triumphantly. “Would 
you like a chestnut? ” The doctor accepted 
one with enthusiasm, and Launcelot, the 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 219 

king and the woman with red hair spent a 
charming and exciting evening. 

They only parted at bedtime at his 
mother’s door on the express understanding 
that he was to come again the next day, and 
that knights never even under the hardest 
circumstances cried, and that last, but not 
least, the coal-black charger with a stiff neck 
under the king’s coat transported thither 
from a fairy shop must be shown without 
delay to Marie, daddy and the cook. These 
facts being grasped the worst was over, and 
the knight, strewing wet kisses in his wake, 
was borne away to bed, leaving his volatile 
mother expressing shrill-voiced thanks to 
Cynthia and Geoff. The streets seemed ten 
times brighter and less chilly to the doctor 
and his sister, and they went to a screaming 
French farce for the rest of the evening, and 
felt much the better for it. In fact they 
even forgot for a while their determination 
to enjoy themselves. 

After this it became the custom for 
Launcelot to go to Cynthia every afternoon 
and stay with her till evening. Millicent 
was always grateful, but frequently hurried 
— more hurried even than an American 


220 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

woman in Paris generally is. She did not 
refer again to the charming Count and his 
sister, but one day she told Cynthia that 
“Clifton had gone away.” 

“For how long?” asked Cynthia quietly. 
Millicent stared, then she sat down and 
laughed. She laughed for a long while, but 
not very merrily. Finally she explained 
with a blank terseness. 

“He’s just quit; he’s gone! he’s left me. 
Don’t stand there and stare, Cynthia. Sit 
down. We didn’t have a very good time 
together.” She continued pacing restlessly 
up and down the little tawdry room. “He 
was always the sort of man that wanted a 
good time, and we didn’t have much money. 
After the child came, you know, it was 
worse than ever. I wasn’t going to play 
the door-mat to Clifton, but I did my best 
to make it pretty.” She looked at the little 
concealments, ragged and thin in the heart- 
less Paris sunshine, and they looked more 
pathetic than ever. “And I dressed real 
well, but there wasn’t any keeping him. 
He only told me I was ruining him with 
dressmakers’ bills, though he knew I make 
the most of my own clothes! Sometimes I 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


221 


wish I hadn’t been so cock-sure about Paris. 
In America there’ d have been something to 
keep him back, but there’s nothing to keep 
one back in Paris. Things look as innocent 

and pretty ” her voice broke; “but they 

aren’t, Cynthia — they’ re real mean! they’re 
real mean!” Cynthia sat silently gazing at 
the carpet. The nervous, breaking voice, 
the frightened, restless figure were not lost 
upon her. They seemed familiar somehow, 
quite as if she had seen them before; and 
the ring of pain in the most meagre phrase 
“But they aren’t — they’re real mean! 
they’re real mean!” voiced a feeling that 
had once been part of her without a voice. 
She waited for the inevitable sequel. It 
came in a burst of hysterical sobs. “He 
left me a note, Cynthia — Clifton did — he 
said I should know where to look for con- 
solation!” 

“The brute!’’ cried Cynthia. Millicent 
laughed. 

“Well! don’t you know they’re all that 
way when a man is tired. Nothing will 
keep him; and then he wants to throw a 
sop to something, maybe he thinks it’s his 
conscience, so he invents another man for 


222 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

the woman he’s left — if — ^if there isn’t one 
already. ” 

“Millicent,” Cynthia stood up, and took 
the pretty, heavily ringed hand in hers, 
“do you think the second man will bring 
you anything better than the first? He 
never does — the only difference is he leaves 
you worse. Stick to your art and Launce- 
lot ! ” Millicent tore her hands away. 

“Pshaw! you’re always talking about the 
child — I hate him! — there! — I hate him! 
I hated the pain, I hated being put aside, 
I hated having to spend my time on him — 
maybe if he hadn’t come Cilfton would have 
been different; maybe other things would 
have been different too! As for my art, as 
you call it, what is art to a woman? Why, 
it’s nothing! you know it, Cynthia. If 
Leslie Damores hadn’t played the fool ” 

“Hush!” Cynthia stammered in a piteous 
attempt to hide the pain of his name. 

“Well, then! If a man wanted you, I’d 
like to know what pictures would mean? 
Pictures! I may be weak and silly — I 
know I am — I loved my husband. Yes! I 
did! I know I did. But if I can’t have 
him, I must have somebody. And you 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 223 

want me — to paint! Well! I’ll tell you. I 
wanted to please Clifton — so I painted. 
Now the Count doesn’t like the folks I mix 

with ” she bridled perceptibly, and 

Cynthia felt sick, ‘‘so I won’t paint any 
more.” 

She looked at the clock. Cynthia gazed 
at her desperately; she heard Launcelot’s 
voice in the next room. She had taught 
him “ Sir Galahad,” and his voice rose in a 
triumphant shout at the last words, “All 
arm’d I ride, whate’er betide, until I find 
the Holy Grail!” 

“What are you going to do with the 
child? ” she asked wearily. Millicent flushed. 
No woman is without the saving grace of 
feeling, through some chord, a touch of 
shame. 

“The Count,” she said, “says he’ll send 
him to school; he’s very kind.” 

“Very,” said Cynthia dryly. “He will 
send him to a French school, where he will 
grow into a second Count — it’s very kind of 
him. Millicent, if you have no other plan, 
will you give him to me? ” 

“To you!” said Millicent — “to you?” 
She was astonished. She was, after all, 


224 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


his mother, and even where motherhood 
brings no love it keeps its sense of property. 
“Why, Cynthia, I don’t know as I can; 
you see, after all, I’m his mother! It’s 

very kind of you, Cynthia — but ” She 

looked again at the clock. 

“Look here!” said Cynthia suddenly, 
“I’m not going without the boy. You had 
better make up your mind to give him to 
me. You don’t want to ruin his life as well 
as your own, and if you don’t let me have 

him ” Cynthia’s eyes flashed. “He 

will be more in your way than ever now. 
I shall stay and — explain — to the Count!” 
she finished grimly. Millicent tmned 
white. 

“Oh, go!” she said. “For Heaven’s 
sake go, and take the boy with you. I 
suppose you don’t know what people will 
say! I suppose it doesn’t matter to you 
that we all know why Leslie Damores didn’t 
marry you. I suppose ” 

“Oh, Lady Beautiful!” — the knight 
stood looking from one to the other at the 
door — “ Lady Beautiful, do you know where 
it is? ” 

“Where what is, my darling?” 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 225 

“The Holy Grail,” said the knight 
wrinkling his brows. “I don’t know where 
to find it.” Cynthia took his hand. 

“Let’s go and look for it,” she said; “it 
isn’t here.” 

She hesitated, but Millicent stood at the 
window with her back to them. She put 
her hands to her hair and replaced a pin. 
Cynthia turned with the boy, and together 
they left the little tawdry flat for the last 
time; left the strange, sad life with its 
shattered opportunities and sordid conceal- 
ments; left his mother standing by the 
window waiting for the Count. 


CHAPTER XXXI 


Where He stands, — the Arch Fear 
In a visible form/' 

“It is absolutely necessary you snould 
come to me at once. I am extremely ill. 

“ Your Uncle.” 

This brief but characteristic epistle rung 
in Muriel’s head as she left the club for the 
night. It was a trying time to leave the 
work. She had almost a settlement now of 
new helpers, men and women, all under her 
headship, devoted and earnest workers, but 
needing direction, and a firm, experienced 
hand. Cyril Johnstone had volunteered to 
come to her. Association with her having 
' convinced him that she was neither light- 
minded nor superficial, and that in spite of 
his exalted office he still had something to 
learn from a woman. Captain Hurstly hav- 
ing withdrawn his liberal subscription, the 
226 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 227 

club- work in his parish had fallen through, 
and the old, broad-minded, empty-headed 
vicar could jog on in peace to his grave with 
a sly chuckle or two at the fizzling out of 
modern efforts. 

Meanwhile honest hard work and the 
buffeting experience of the working-man 
had opened the young curate’s mind and 
sobered his heart, and there is no such 
worker in any cause as the disciplined 
enthusiast. 

Muriel was happier about her work than 
she had ever been. It was only right, 
according to her ethics, that as satisfaction 
dawned the new call should come. She did 
not know what her uncle’s illness meant, 
but she settled work for the next few weeks, 
had a final talk with her new associate, and 
putting on what she called her society dress 
drove off in a hansom to her uncle’s. She 
found him in the comfortable stage of a 
dressing-gown and hot chocolate. He closed 
his eyes as she entered the room. 

“Muriel, is that you?” 

“Yes, dear; I came at once.” 

“ If you had not come it would have been 
too late! Muriel shut the door!” Muriel 


228 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

shut the door. The room was very warm, 
and the bright winter sunshine lit up the 
gold in her hair, and brought out the smile 
which was always latent in her eyes. She 
sat down by him and took his hand. 

“ Have they made your chocolate nicely?” 
she asked. 

“Never! Of course they haven’t. I am 
infamously neglected. My slightest wish is 
thwarted. I am not master in my own 
house, Muriel! That is why I sent for you. 
You at least, before you became so selfish 
and absorbed in your own pleasure, knew 
how to look after my comfort. The doctor 
says I must on no account move. I suffer 
agonies from my foot, and if anything was 
to upset me the gout might fly to my heart! 
Yet though I have spoken about it again 
and again, they will leave skin on my hot 
milk ! ” 

“ Shall I make you some more chocolate, 
and boil the milk myself?” asked Muriel 
smiling. He growled an affirmative. And 
Muriel, chatting brightly about his favor- 
ite topics, made him fresh chocolate, and 
lightened the room by certain little read- 
justments of flowers, books and cushions 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


229 


that the eyes of the most diligent of servants 
always just miss over, as if to prove that 
self-help smiles after all. 

Sir Arthur Dallerton had aged terribly. 
Death’s hand rested upon so much that was 
mortal. It is only in such cases that death 
is dreadful. Muriel, who had so often seen 
it, thought she had never seen it more sadly, 
for in his eyes was the haunting fear from 
which there is no escape. Later on in the 
evening he called her to him. She had been 
singing over some old Scotch airs. She came 
and sat on a footstool at his feet, with her 
head on his knee. He liked to stroke her 
hair and hold her hand; it gave hi m a sense 
of peace and security. 

“Muriel,” he said, “do you think there is 
any chance of — anything happening to 
me?” The verb “ to die ” is terrible to some 
people. Sir Arthur Dallerton preferred the 
evasion of something happening. 

“Why, no, dear; what should — happen?” 
said Muriel smiling. “Things — sad things 
might cease to happen for you; but that 
would be beautiful, wouldn’t it?” 

“Oh, Muriel, I don’t want to die! I am 
afraid! afraid!” His voice rose almost to 


230 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

a scream. She stroked his hand and 
soothed him as if he were a frightened 
child. 

“There, there, dear heart! it won’t hurt 
you, see; there isn’t any death, or anything 
to be afraid of, surely! Only light, peace 
and rest, dear uncle, and all the beautiful, 
lovely things of earth quite free, and noth- 
ing to hurt any more!” 

“Oh, Muriel, child, do you think I shall 
see people whom I’ve come across in life? 
Oh, it’s awful ! ” The poor, silly, selfish life, 
held hopelessly before his eyes by the Inex- 
orable Reality, made him catch his breath. 
The girl’s heart sank, but she spoke with 
firm assurance. 

“We shall meet nothing that we can’t 
bear — nothing that is too hard for us — for 
God is just as strong to save after death as 
before.” 

“But if there isn’t any God, if there’s only 
an awful grave? Oh, Muriel, it’s a dreadful 
thing to be an old man!” He shivered 
from head to foot, and she nestled closer to 
his side. 

“The body dies, and never feels anything; 
it’s just a sleep, and it will never dream, or 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


231 


wake, or fret and trouble any more, and we 
believe that the spirit is safer without it, 
and close to God,” she murmured. 

‘^I’m not so sure of that,” said her 
uncle sharply. ‘'Some spirits can’t help 
it. They’re no better than they should be, 
and what do you think happens to them? ” 

The blind cannot see. It is a scientific 
fact and a living reality; the nearest they 
can reach to sight is to feel that they do not 
see as much as they might see, and they dim 
that view by the cry of the eternally inade- 
quate “ I can’t help it.” 

Muriel pressed her lips to the poor human 
hand. 

“Dear uncle, such spirits must be made 
as well as they ought to be. We must trust 
God for the method, for we can’t know what 
is best; but I am quite sure God meant us 
all for His, and if we hold fast to that we 
shall grow like Him in time, and He will 
give us time, for there is all eternity for us 
to go on being good in if we have made the 
start.” 

“You’ll never leave me, Muriel? Promise 
you will never leave me!” There was a 
moment’s pause, while she looked into the 


232 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


fire and watched the red-hot coal grow black 
and drop to ashes in the grate. 

“I’ll never leave you, dear,” she said at 
last. “ And you won’t be afraid any more? ” 
she questioned. “ I shall sleep right in the 
next room to you if you want me. You 
won’t be afraid? ” 

“ No, child ! It’s been very lonely without 
you, and they’re very thoughtless about my 
chocolate. But you don’t think there’s any 
— hell, do you? ” 

“Oh, no, dear; I am quite sure there’s 
not. Now don’t you think I’d better ring 
for Thomas to carry you to bed, and I’ll see 
that the cook does your broth nicely.” 

“You may if you like,” he said grudg- 
ingly; “and mind you come to bed early, 
and come to me the moment I call you.” 

“Yes, dear, I will,” and she kissed him 
gently. 

“You’re a good child,” he murmured 
sleepily. Just as she closed the door he 
called her back. “Muriel!” 

“Yes, uncle.” 

“Are you sure about what you just 
mentioned, you know?” 

“There’s nothing in all the world or out 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


233 


of it but God, be very sure,” she said with 
the passionate certainty of her faith. 

He was not quite certain whether he liked 
that very much better either. But his 
broth was just as he wished that evening, 
and he did not call her in the night for he 
passed away peacefully in his sleep. And 
there was no dark left but his own soul, and 
even that with the hope of light in it passed 
into the eternal. 


CHAPTER XXXII 


'‘This cold, clay clod was man’s heart: 

Crumble it, and what comes next? — Is it God?” 

Muriel woke up to a new poverty and 
an extra ten thousand a year. The latter 
scarcely passed through her mind, but the 
former made her terribly lonely. N ow there 
seemed nothing left, and the world a vast 
cold place void of personality. 

She repeated three times over during a 
hurried, lonely breakfast that she had her 
work, and the post brought her two letters, 
one with Cynthia’s Paris address, the other 
in a handwriting that drew all the blood to 
her heart. She put it aside and read 
Cynthia’s. It told of her work and of 
Launcelot. The tone was softer than usual. 
Muriel was scarcely surprised when she read 
“ Launcelot says his prayers every evening, 
and always goes to church on Sundays. So 
I do, too. His soul wants nourishment as 
234 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 235 

well as his body, and I promised to take 
care of him. The other night Geoff took 
him to bed, and when I went up to look at 
them they were kneeling side by side look- 
ing out of the window. Launcelot has an 
idea that the Holy Grail is in one of the 
stars, and he is always looking for it. You 
have found it, Muriel, dear, and I am begin- 
ning to believe that some day I may find it 
too.” She did not mention Leslie Damores; 
evidently he had not discovered her yet. 
Muriel hesitated to send him Cynthia’s 
address; she believed it better for them 
both to wait. 

Finally she took up the second letter. 
“Will you forgive me for writing to you? 
Gladys and I are married. We have left 
India for good, which means my profession 
dropped, you understand; but Gladys says 
there is no one to dress for in India. You’ll 
think it awful cheek on my part, but she’s 
very young yet, and you used to have a 
tremendous influence over her. I suppose 
you couldn’t drop in now and then and give 
her a hint or two? I should like to see you 
awfully. — Jack.” 

Muriel carefully put the letter on a table. 


236 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


and sat with her hands on her lap gazing 
steadfastly into the fire. She saw three 
things, and she saw them plainly. One was 
that Jack did not love his wife, another 
that she, Muriel, had hardly forgiven 
Gladys, and thirdly that Jack would like to 
see her awfully. There was a dim, shadowy 
fourth, but this she brushed angrily away; 
it hinted that there was more sunlight 
in the room than before she had read the 
letter. 

Finally she drifted into a compromise it 
would do no harm to see Gladys. She wrote 
telling her of her loss and inviting her to 
tea the following week. She was very 
nervous when the afternoon came, and 
paced restlessly up and down the long re- 
ception room in her heavy black dress vexed 
with her expectancy, listening to the noises 
in the street. The sharp jingle of a hansom 
passing, hesitating, stopping, brought her 
to a chair. 

Then came the sound of an electric bell, 
and a minute later the door swung open and 
a footman announced “Captain Hurstly, 
miss.’’ 

Muriel looked at him inquiringly. She 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 237 

did not appear in the least nervous now, for 
natures that tremble at a hindrance rise 
triumphantly to meet a calamity, and in a 
moment she realized that his presence was 
fully that. 

“ Gladys couldn’t come at the last minute, 
and I did want to see you so, Muriel,” he 
explained. He pleaded as he had always 
done, and he was just as handsome. She 
let these things have full weight with her 
before she spoke. 

Won’t you sit down. Captain Hurstly; 
they will bring tea in a minute. I am sorry 
your wife could not come.” 

Jack looked at her with eloquent, grieved 
eyes, but she meeting them saw the coward 
in his soul, and her face hardened. He had 
not cared enough for her to remain un- 
married, merely enough to desire a flirtation 
after marriage. She had not slept properly 
for three nights after she received his letter. 
He was the first to find the silence uncom- 
fortable. 

“1 am not sorry she could not come,” he 
said with a tender inflection; wanted to 
see you alone. It is a long while since I 
have seen you, Muriel. To me it seems 


238 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

desperately long, and yet you have not 
changed at all.” 

‘‘You are mistaken, Captain Hurstly; I 
have changed a great deal. You also 
have altered considerably.” Muriel’s tone 
was convincing even to herself; she was 
beginning to believe she could after all 
bear it. 

“It is true I have altered,” he replied. 
“You alone might know how terribly, but 
I suppose it is never wise to follow a wrong 
by a folly. Only one can’t help oneself when 
one’s world, all that one has ever cared for, 
tumbles about one’s ears. Oh, Muriel, how 
could you do it ! how could you do it ! ” He 
was intensely in earnest; he could always 
be that at the very shortest notice. He 
stood in front of her looking down with 
the same passionate blue eyes which used 
to stir her heart, and yet when he met 
hers it did not seem as if he was looking 
down. 

“If you have come to open a question 
forever closed between us. Captain Hurstly, 
and which your own honor and good sense 
should know to be doubly closed by your 
marriage, I must ask you to excuse me. I 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 239 

did not invite your wife to tea as a per- 
mission for you to insult me.” 

“You are right,” he said looking at her 
with frank admiration; “you are always 
right, Muriel, without you I have for- 
gotten how to be. Forgive me, I did not 
come here to upbraid you for ruining my 
life ” 

“I should think not, indeed,” Muriel 
interrupted scornfully. 

“But to ask you to help me about Gladys. 
Are you my friend enough to wish to do that 
— ^Muriel? ” She flushed painfully. 

“ I should like to help you,” she said in a 
low voice. 

“It’s simply that she won’t understand 
the danger of flirting with other men — every 
and any other man apparently,” he ex- 
plained; “and I don’t want my wife to 
be a second Edith le Mentier.” There 
was a pause; his illustration was unfor- 
tunate. 

“You give her no cause to complain of 
you by your attention to the — first Mrs. 
le Mentier?” she could not forbear to 
ask. 

“ Muriel ! ” he cried. The protest was too 


240 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

vehement to be convincing. She rose and 
held out her hand. 

“ I will do all I can for your wife, Captain 
Hurstly — I am afraid if will be little enough 
— on one condition” — he waited anxiously 
— “that you will not attempt to see me 
again.” 

“ You really mean it? ” He spoke slowly, 
intensely. She never knew afterwards how 
she kept her hands from trembling. 

“You have singularly forgotten the little 
you knew of me if you think I do not mean 
what I say. Captain Hurstly.” She turned 
wearily to the door. He compared her in 
his mind with Edith le Mentier. Muriel 
was telling him to go away. She had told 
him to come back. Gladys was only a 
shadow in his life, a chained shadow; he 
did not eyen think of her at this moment. 
He had never depended on principles or 
considered consequences. 

“Good-bye, then, Muriel,” he said. “I 
suppose I must thank you for your promise, 
though its condition is terrible to me. You 
don’t know what you may be driving me 
to!” 

“Oh, I’m not driving you,” cried Muriel 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


241 


desperately, the weakness of his nature 
dawning more fully on her; '' drive 
yourself, Captain Hurstly — drive your- 
self!” 

So he went, and was driven by some 
passion of irresponsibility from Muriel to 
Edith le Mentier. He found her in. 

For Muriel there was just earth — weak 
earth — where her ideal had once made 
heaven for her. 

It is not often we are brought into such 
sharp contact with our broken idols; if it 
were we should cease to make new ones — 
and that would be a loss. 

Muriel stood face to face with the knowl- 
edge that she had been a fool — a girl with 
a dream — lie — hugged to her heart: and 
God help women who have to realize such 
dreams in the daylight of facts. 

All she could find to say was that he was 
absolutely dead; she had not risen yet to 
see her deliverance. If the world had been 
empty before, now it was a blank. Those 
who die leave a sense of loss, but to know 
that one we loved has never lived is the 
greatest and most tragic emptiness of all. 
Muriel saw failure written over her heart. 


242 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

There was only one thing left: she fell on 
her knees and offered up her failure. So 
love passed away from her, but it left her 
on her knees. 


CHAPTER XXXIII 

"The black moments at end, the elements change/’ 

It was early, and the sunlight with sharp 
shadows had a chilly and almost stage 
effect. The sky was dazzling over Notre 
Dame. Geoffrey Grant sat in the great 
church, watching the sunbeams catch up 
and glorify the dust. Worshippers and 
sightseers slipped in and out, and many 
candles gleamed. 

The thought of Muriel had driven him 
there; and now he was alone with it he 
thought half cynically how many had been 
driven there from the effects of unhappy 
love affairs, only they had called it aspira- 
tion. He at least was honest with himself ; 
he knew it was Muriel. 

In his early youth he had been embittered 
by a girl. It was the usual story of love 
and no money, and the girl had chosen not 
to wait. When success and good fortune 
243 


244 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

came to him, he was indifferent to it. He 
treated all women with a sort of good- 
natured contempt, thinking them creatures 
of diseased nerves and hysterical affections. 
Necessary evils distinctly, but of the two 
perhaps more evil than necessary. His 
sister had been the one exception; he al- 
most worshipped her. Then came her story. 
A crisis Avhich he had passed through, by 
an extraordinary power, but once faced, he 
had resolutely killed, and hidden all traces 
of the past. His sister never knew what 
agony she had brought into his life. She 
believed that his perceptions were blunted, 
instead they were too delicate to be obvious; 
he had encased them in reserve, and bore 
without wincing because the worst pain 
stings into silence. Muriel had been a reve- 
lation to him, her gayety was so spontan- 
eous, her brightness so infectious. She had 
thrown her life, all dusty and human, into 
the glory of the sunbeam, and she was 
strong. He had watched her with Jack 
Hurstly, and he watched her afterwards. 
As a doctor her magnificent healthiness ap- 
pealed to him. He could not imagine her 
having nervous prostration; as a man he 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


245 


marvelled at her. She knew that he loved 
her, yet she could look him straight in the 
eyes and be frankly friendly. 

It had become the purpose of his life to 
strengthen their friendship into something 
more. For a long while he had struggled 
against it, but it was a passion that found 
grace with his whole nature; and, when he 
had come to the conclusion that strength lay 
in submission, Cynthia needed him, and he 
laid down his love and his work to face the 
Arch Fear of his life. If Cynthia should 
fail! 

The last month had worn lines in his face, 
and his keen eyes in repose looked sadder 
than ever. He had fought, and the worst 
was over; he had watched and fenced, 
waited and listened, seized opportunities, 
avoided dangers, guided and guarded, and 
slaved that Cynthia should be safe and ig- 
norant of his efforts. He had felt happier 
when Launcelot came, and this afternoon 
had left her with a mind at rest. 

The figure of a woman with a child in 
her arms attracted him. She had evidently 
come a long way; she was tired and footsore, 
and very poorly dressed. He watched her 


246 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


buy a candle for the Virgin’s shrine and 
kneel there till overcome with weariness, 
she slept, her head against a pillar, but even 
though she slept she clasped the child. He 
felt less impatience than usual with the 
wasteful, senseless candle-buying, and the 
love, the unconscious love of motherhood, 
and all things beautiful touched him closely. 
After all, he wondered, there was something 
strangely more than human in women who 
could give so much as Muriel and that 
mother. No physical passion could explain 
it all — it was so selfless, so extraordinary, so 
unnatural in another mood he might have 
called it, but here and now “supernatural” 
seemed the more fitting word. The baby 
stirred in its sleep, and the mother’s eyes 
opened watchfully. She changed its posi- 
tion to a more comfortable one in her arms, 
then she made the sign of the Cross on its 
forehead, and crossing herself rose to her 
feet and left the church. The doctor rose 
too, and then, moved by an emotion he 
could never account for knelt and prayed. 
He smiled a little whimsically to himself. 
“ Why, I believe I am becoming a Christian,” 
he thought. But he had not changed; he 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 247 

was only beginning to see what all along 
the tremendous struggle of his life had been 
making him. People who are so much 
better than their creeds often wake up to 
find their creeds are higher than they 
dreamed. 


CHAPTER XXXIV 


shall clasp thee again: and with God be the rest!” 

He had found her ! He repeated breath- 
lessly to himself the one great fact. Leslie 
Damores had searched all their old haunts 
in Paris, had wandered and waited and 
watched, and now at last found her in a 
great class-room of French students. He 
had come as a special favor to the master 
in whose studio they worked, and he could 
not signal her out for more than a word, but 
by a clever clumsiness he knocked over her 
drawing-board. As he picked it up and 
gave it to her all the great unspoken things 
passed between them. It proved the 
mocking inadequacy of words that all he 
could say was “ When may I see you? ” and 
that she could only answer ‘'After the 
class.” The first blessed moment had gone, 
general criticisms had to be given, and 
French and English art discussed. An 
248 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 249 

hour passed interminably; he could not al- 
ways stand where the glint of red gold hair 
made of the studio a new heaven and a new 
earth. Then in a blessed skirmish of con- 
flicting drawing-boards and parting chatter 
the class broke up, and somehow the master 
and the pupil found themselves once more 
in the streets of Paris, or the new Jerusa- 
lem. There was at that moment ridicu- 
lously little in a name. Their thoughts 
were only a happy chaos, and he could do 
nothing but repeat the only fact that 
mattered. 

“ I have found you at last,” he said. 

“ I don’t believe you ought to have looked 
for me,” she replied gravely, for she was 
afraid. 

“What made you run away, Cynthia?” 
he asked. She could give him any rea- 
son but the right one. She chose to deny 
the charge. 

“I didn’t run away,” she said; “I merely 
wanted to come to Paris.” 

“Then why shouldn’t I look for you?” 
cried Leslie triumphantly; “I merely 
wanted to come too.” 

“I don’t know where we are going to,” 


250 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


said Cynthia, looking at him to see if he was 
much altered. 

“I don’t think it in the least matters 
providing we go there together,” laughed 
Damores. “As it happens, here’s a ceme- 
tery; shall we go in and look at the tomb- 
stones? ” Cynthia laughed as well. It was 
too absurd to think of death. There were 
lines in his face; he must have missed her a 
good deal. They went into the cemetery 
together. A husband who had come to put 
some flowers on the grave of his dead wife 
thought them heartless. They were not 
heartless, they were only too happy to re- 
member they had hearts at all. 

“ Now you have come, what are you going 
to do?” she asked at last. She could not 
meet his eyes now; the things they meant 
cried too loudly for an answer. 

“I am going to marry you,” he replied 
smiling, “ if you’ll let me. I don’t think any- 
thing else matters just at present.” Cynthia 
felt the color in great rebellious waves sweep 
over her face. She looked with unseeing 
eyes at the wreaths of absurdly artificial 
flowers. 

“Do you fully realize what that means. 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 251 

Leslie? ” she asked. Can you face every- 
thing — everything? ” 

“Everything! everything!” said Leslie 
quietly, “with you; without you I cannot 
live my life. You are the best of everything 
I do. You never came to see my picture — 
it would have told you all. Once I made a 
tremendous mistake. It seems a crime 
when I look back. There is only one thing 
that can ever wipe it out. Cynthia, is it too 
late to ask you to be my wife, and overlook 
the past? ” She could not speak, her heart 
thundered, and seemed to shake the ground 
she stood on. 

God had given her a tremendous reward, 
a gift unspeakable after she had renounced 
what had been to her the very hope of joy, 
and from the lips of the man she loved 
pardon and oblivion swept her sin into the 
free, pure waters of love. She lifted up her 
eyes to him that he might read there all her 
heart and soul his eternally and for ever. 
For a long while silence came down and 
covered them. They turned at last, and 
slowly and without speaking left the place 
of tombs — the acre of God’s sleeping ones. 
The man who had been stung by their 


252 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


laughter, seeing their faces again, recalled 
his injury. ‘‘After all,” he thought, “they 
had their business here.” And he was 
right, for love and death live in no separate 
houses. 


CHAPTER XXXV 


“A man’s reach should exceed his grasp.” 

— Robert Browning. 

Gladys was desperately unhappy. She 
had got what she wanted, and that, un- 
fortunately, is frequently what follows. 
The unscrupulous get much, but they lose 
more; and Gladys, who had won her heart’s 
desire, sitting in a beautifully furnished 
room before the photograph of the hus- 
band she adored, was weeping bitterly. 
From the first day of their marriage jars 
had arisen. He was hopelessly selfish 
about his personal comforts, but he had a 
certain tremendous code of honor of the 
sort that abhors a lie and connives at a 
betrayal. Gladys was given to frequent 
fibbing. He had been disgusted, and 
had not hidden it; she had been spiteful 
and pointedly malicious. Little bitter un- 
spoken things rose up as their eyes met. 

253 


254 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

Their honeymoon had not been a success. 
(An exacting woman and a selfish man 
should avoid honeymoons.) 

Their home-coming was scarcely more so. 
They were both very extravagant in differ- 
ent directions/and they had no patience for 
each other’s extravagances and no self- 
denial for their own; they were weak and 
obstinate over trifles. Gladys was ex- 
tremely demonstrative and fond of talking; 
Jack cared very little for outward expres- 
sions of feeling, and preferred women who 
could hold their tongues. He was perfectly 
frank, and paid all his compliments to other 
women. Gladys lived on admiration, and 
if she could not get it from the man who 
ought to give it to her, she would try to 
draw it from the man who would. She 
found this very easy. A good many of her 
husband’s brother officers admired her, and 
one of them, a Major Kennedy, frequently 
told her so. 

She was cr3ung bitterly now over a note 
that lay on her lap. It was an invitation to 
a dinner from Edith le Mentier to meet 
Major Kennedy. It mentioned her husband 
in a way that brought the angry color to 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 255 

her cheeks. She was beginning to under- 
stand, and the tears dried. She thought 
of what Major Kennedy had said of the 
way to treat husbands: ‘‘Give ’em a little 
wholesome indifference, and look round 
you; that’s the way to whistle ’em back!” 

After all, a woman might have a good deal 
of fun without any harm coming from it. 
Lots of married women did. Look at Edith 
le Mentier for instance — hateful thing! Yet 
no one could doubt that her husband was 
devoted to her — and other women’s hus- 
bands too! Her eyes flashed as she thought 
of Jack. She stamped her foot. “I’ll pay 
them both out!” she cried, and she accepted 
Edith le Mentier’s “delightful invitation.” 

Muriel called on Mrs. Hurstly later in the 
season. There was a moment’s silence as 
the two women met. The room so daintily 
and beautifully furnished seemed filled with 
memories. Their eyes were drawn together 
to the photograph of Jack Hurstly in uni- 
form. It was a curious coincidence that he 
had given to his wife the very photograph 
Muriel had returned to him. It was the 
only copy. Muriel withdrew her hand and 
sat down with her back to the photograph. 


256 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

“And are you going to live in London?” 
she asked Gladys, studying the girl’s face, 
the defiant sad eyes and peevish mouth, the 
fretful restlessness of the dainty figure. 
Pity was killing the last traces of her dis- 
appointment in her. Gladys returned her 
gaze curiously; she was thinking how be- 
coming black was to Muriel. 

“Oh, yes!” she said; “I suppose we shall 
practically live here. I hate the country, 
you know, except for house-parties, and 
Jack’s estate is particularly dreary, I think. 
I hate ‘estates,’ they’re like appropriated 
pews, one always wants to sit somewhere 
else! Have you given up your club craze 
yet? Your uncle’s death must have made a 
lot of difference to you?” Muriel smiled. 

“If you mean am I horribly rich? I’ll 
admit it, but it will make the ‘club craze’ 
flourish more than ever, I expect. I have 
bought up three houses in Stepney and 
turned them into one for a settlement of 
workers. I am making arrangements now 
to enlarge the club, and in two or three 
weeks I shall go back to it.” There was a 
slight pause. Gladys played with some 
violets in a stand. “ Are you quite happy? ” 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 257 

said Muriel at last very gently. “I hope, 
dear, you are quite happy?” It appeared 
to Gladys absurd to suppose she could 
possibly mean it, yet the tone sounded 
sincere. 

“Happy? — of course we are! Why we 
have only been married a few months, and 
Jack has discovered I wear my own hair 
and keep my own complexion, and I am 
reassured as to the harmlessness of his 
habits and the extent of his income. What 
more can one ask?” 

“Those in themselves might add to your 
unhappiness if you were so already, but 
they could scarcely succeed in making you 
happy, I am afraid,” said Muriel quietly. 

“Wouldn’t you be happy with — Jack?” 
questioned Gladys. Sorrow, if it doesn’t 
increase tenderness, tends to brutality. 
Muriel met her eyes calmly. 

“No,” she said slowly, “I do not think I 
should be quite happy — with Jack.” She 
did not refer to their broken engagement. 
Gladys expected her to, and was touched. 

“It was horrid of me to say that,” she 
said, “if you still care for him, and rude of 
me if you don’t.” 


258 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

“ I don’t think you either rude or horrid,” 
said Muriel quietly, “ only not quite happy. 
I am very sorry for you, dear, because, 
though I don’t care for Jack as I did, he 
made me very miserable once.” Gladys 
pulled two violets to pieces on her lap. 
Muriel shivered; she hated wanton destruc- 
tion of anything, and she loved flowers. 

“ I have behaved very badly to you,” said 
Gladys at last in a low voice. ‘‘It was I 
that helped Edith le Mentier make trouble 
between you and Jack.” 

“You loved him so?” asked Muriel gent- 
ly. Gladys burst into tears. 

“ I don’t know why you should treat me 
like this,” she sobbed, “for I did my best to 
ruin your life, and I would again to get — 
Jack!” Muriel took her in her arms; all 
her old love and pity returned to her. 

“It would make no difference to me if 
you did,” said Muriel; “I should only be 
sorry for you. Tell me what’s the matter? ” 

“He doesn’t care! he doesn’t care!” she 
wailed. “I don’t believe he ever did, and 
now he’s gone back to that hateful woman 
again. Why shouldn’t I amuse myself if I 
want to? He doesn’t love me, and — and 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 259 

other people do!” Muriel’s face grew stern 
with pain. If she had wished for revenge 
it was at her feet, but with all her soul she 
sorrowed for the wreckage of two lives. 

‘‘I don’t think you are quite yourself,” 
she said. “ If you love Jack, you know he 
is the only other person there is. He must 
have cared for you as well, or he wouldn’t 
have married you, dear. So put the other 
people quite away, and smile, and wear your 
prettiest clothes. You will find Mrs. le 
Mentier quite a secondary consideration. 
Why, she isn’t even pretty! Jack only 
goes to see her because you won’t be nice 
to him. Now have you been quite nice to 
him? Given up yourself in all the little 
ways, that he might give himself up to 
you in the great ways? Remember men 
are like children: you must put their toys 
away, and bring them out again at the right 
times, and not fret them about unnecessary 
things. Now, put on some of the dear violets 
and come home to tea with me!” Gladys 
looked at her suspiciously. Muriel laughed. 
“There’s nothing I want to get out of you!” 
she cried; and you are no use to me what- 
ever. Now, will you come?’’ Gladys had 


260 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

the grace to blush; an impulse to trust the 
girl she had wronged moved her. She gave 
her a letter to read and went out of the 
room to get her things on. Muriel read 
the letter standing, then she went to the 
window and sat down. 

She felt very tired. It is not so much of 
a surprise to find the outwardly barbarous 
with angel hearts, as to see the dehcate and 
finished products of a noble civilization 
inwardly corrupt. The letter was from 
Major Kennedy. There are times when 
conditional immortality seems the only safe- 
guard of heaven. Muriel felt too miserable 
almost to breathe. There come moments 
in the brightest lives of blank depression. 
The greatest effort she ever made was to 
take Gladys back to tea with her. That 
evening Jack Hurstly dined at home, and 
his wife burned an unanswered letter. 


CHAPTER XXXVI 


“There is still sun on the wall/^ 

“So Launcelot is to go to school, and 
Cynthia is to be married, and you are to be 
left all alone? ” asked Muriel smiling as she 
handed Geoff a cup of tea. She had handed 
him a good many cups of tea since he had 
been back in England. 

“I am to be left all alone,” repeated the 
doctor, looking at her steadily. 

“ I have been practically alone ever since 
I can remember,” said Muriel suddenly, 
“but I have seldom been lonely. In fact 
I often think it is only the people who 
don’t live alone who are lonely. They are 
always trying to be understood, to break 
through barriers and live on a common 
level, and there’s no such chance, for the 
more one shares the little things the more 
pitilessly isolated the big things make us. 

261 


262 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

It is SO dreadfully inadequate that tanta- 
lizing partial help one gets from others.” 

“There I think you are wrong,” he said 
looking quietly across at her. “It’s the 
whole loaf theory you’re defending. You 
might just as well say a man had better 
have no legs than one, or could be as active 
without a crutch as with one, simply be- 
cause he can’t be very active anyway. 
We all want what help we can get, and it 
is not the least necessary for people to 
understand us to help us. Children are the 
greatest help. People who know that we 
want the moon may be wise enough to tell 
us it is only a worn-out world of rocks, but 
people who can’t fathom our desires can 
still help us by telling us it is beautiful. 
It is one of the first lessons doctors learn 
to help patients to help themselves. In 
fact it is the greatest good we or anybody 
else can do.” 

“Yet you don’t say that the most igno- 
rant doctors are the best?” she prevari- 
cated. 

“No! because sympathy of that kind 
without knowledge is sympathy without 
a backbone. Physical cases require the 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 263 

definite as a foundation, but when one deals 
with the invisible, love comes first, not 
knowledge. Ignorant mothers mean more 
to their children than thoughtful scholars 
could — even if they do slap them occasion- 
ally. A man or woman without a home, 
if they have no jars and frets, must miss 
the influence of it, and feel the horrible 
loneliness of life.” He so intensely meant 
what he said that Muriel felt she had been 
flippant, and yet his seriousness made her 
long to be more so. 

‘‘Birds who sit on telegraph wires, and 
can fly away from the line of communica- 
tion whenever they want to, are more to 
my liking,” she said. 

“You forget that the birds have nests,” 
suggested the doctor smiling. 

“And you that we don’t have wings,” 
sighed Muriel. “And we can’t change our 
mates every spring; when we choose we 
choose for life, expecting the better — and 
getting the worst!” 

“Not always,” said Geoff quietly. 

Muriel felt angry; she could not tell 
why. She had never talked in this strain 
before; she felt vicious with the universe, 


264 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

and its representative opposite her made 
her worse; besides she had just been to 
see Gladys. 

“If there was an alternative we would 
take it,” she said. “But half of us women 
are brought up in such a lackadaisical way 
that there’s no use for us. When we have 
brains and opportunity we are generally 
physically handicapped. People don’t cut 
the woman who works now — they shrug 
their shoulders at her, and that’s worse! As 
for resources (they advise resources, you 
know, after one’s reached twenty-six), they 
are an outlet for wasted powers, a puny out- 
let, a mere compromise with failure! Oh! 
I’ve seen it again and again, dozens of times, 
capable, efficient girls brought up to be per- 
fectly, daintily useless! After the school- 
room is over they get a dress allowance — 
and practise on the piano. Their heads 
must be full of something, so then come the 
rubbish — Cheaps of life, silly curates, silly 
extravagances, or piteously futile old maid- 
hood! They keep us from being trained 
for anything else because they want us to 
marry, but all the other trainings help 
towards that the more one learns the more 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 265 

fit one is to teach. Self-reliance, good judg- 
ment and a sense of proportion are not out 
of place in a wife, and motherhood is only a 
word without them.” The doctor laughed. 

“Train your enterprising exceptions,” he 
said; “perhaps in time they’ll give the 
average woman a lift, but I don’t go all the 
way with you by any means. You over- 
estimate women because of one or two 
women you have met who stand mentally 
above their race. Average women at present 
haven’t brains enough to seize opportunities 
or to apply sensible educations. Domes- 
ticities or resources, and a silly curate or 
two, are just what they can appreciate, and 
good, solid hard work what they wish to 
avoid. I don’t say women lack brains, but 
as a rule they lack depth and continuity. 
They have very little of the mental sound- 
ness, even the clever ones, that the average 
man has as a matter of course. They don’t 
concentrate, and they’re altogether too 
personal to make much headway in the 
professions. You needn’t look as if you 
wished to annihilate me. Miss Muriel — I’ve 
no doubt you could — but I believe it to be 
a fact that women as a whole haven’t got 


266 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


physical or intellectual stamina enough for 
public life, and all the education and 
opportunities in the world will never give 
it to them!” 

But we’re only beginning,” cried Muriel. 
‘‘See how far we’ve got already.” 

“That’s the worst argument you have 
got against you,” said the doctor smiling. 
“You are too quick to be natural; you 
work in spurts with reactions — growth, real 
growth, is a much slower affair. But even 
granting you that you have been kept back, 
you simply can’t be more mentally than you 
have physical strength for, and as long as 
you are labelled women, you’ll be labelled 
weak.” Muriel laughed. 

“You sound so horribly sensible,” she 
said, “and you leave us no power!” 

“Ah! there you’re mistaken,” said the 
doctor. “All your strength (and Heaven 
knows you’ve got enough !) lies in weakness ! 
When we come to the bottom of it, emotion 
rules the world, and woman is queen of the 
emotions.” 

“Oh, doctor! doctor!” cried Muriel with 
uplifted hands. “Principles! principles!” 
Geoff smiled grimly. 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


267 


‘‘Ah! principles/’ he said; “they are very 
good things for theories, and they act as a 
drug on the passions — but sometimes they 
don’t act ! Good-bye, Miss Muriel, my prin- 
ciples warn me of my office hour.” 

Muriel let him go willingly. She felt 
absurd, snubbed, dissatisfied. She wanted 
some one to look at her as Jack had looked, 
with those adoring, humble eyes, and to 
listen to her as Jack had listened passion- 
ately sympathetic, and ready to agree with 
her that two blacks make the loveliest white 
in the world. She hated herself for being 
so rubbed up the wrong way; and in one 
breath accused Dr. Grant of being rude, and 
herself of being ridiculous. Finally she de- 
cided that neither of these things had any- 
thing to do with it, but that she was upset 
about Gladys. 


CHAPTER XXXVII 


"The Devil drove the woman out of Paradise; but not 
even the Devil could drive Paradise out of the woman/^ 
— George Macdonald. 

“The worst of being unusual,” said Edith 
le Mentier to Jack as he talked with her 
under the cover of loud, unmeaning draw- 
ing-room music, “is — that’s it’s so common. 
Really you know it’s ridiculous running 
away. Everybody does it!” 

“Still you know one can’t come back 
again — one’s got to count the cost,” he said 
looking at her anxiously. 

She had made him think he cared a good 
deal for her, and she cared desperately for 
him. He did not realize how much — it was 
her greatest victory that he didn’t. She 
trembled at even feeling his eyes on her, his 
presence near her. 

“I feel such a brute,” he said, “leaving 
Gladys.” 


268 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 269 

“ Brutes can’t live with fools/’ said Edith 
le Men tier. “I like — brutes,” she added 
under her breath. Then she looked at him. 
“ 1 don’t see the necessity for you to leave — 
Gladys,” she said. 

The music stopped with a crash. The 
hostess cried, ‘‘Oh, how delicious! Thank 
you! And which of the dear old masters 
was that?” The conversation leaped joy- 
ously into freedom. 

Jack felt the room and the plants and the 
beautiful dresses whirl round him like a 
dream. 

“But,” he said, “I’m not that sort of a 
man.” He had risen to the very height 
of his standard. Edith understood in- 
stantly. 

“ I mean,” she said gently and sadly, “we 
might never see each other again.” 

“Edith! Edith!” he said; “not that, my 
darling!” 

“Remember where you are,” she said in 
an undertone. ‘‘They’re going to ask me 
to sing,” she added. “Come to me to- 
morrow.’’ 

“I wish you would tell me if you mean to 
trust me!” he pleaded. 


270 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


She shrugged her shoulders; they were 
very pretty ones ; then she sang. They had 
nothing there she knew but Gounod’s 
“There is a green hill far away.” And so 
she sang that. She sang it beautifully. 

Gladys was sitting up for him, she had had 
a headache and could not accompany him. 
She always had a headache if there was the 
chance of her meeting Edith le Mentier. She 
had dressed very sweetly to welcome him, 
and looked very young and pathetic. It 
was so late that he scolded her for sitting up 
for him, but she told him she had something 
Special to say, and took him into the library, 
shutting the door. The fire gleamed cheer- 
ily, and Jack, as he leaned back in a big 
arm-chair, and looked at the pretty, eager 
face opposite him, felt more of a brute than 
ever. 

“I have had Muriel with me all the after- 
noon,” she began nervously, “and she made 
me promise to talk it all over frankly with 
you. She’s been so good to me. Jack! — and 
I told her that I would ” She hesi- 

tated, and looked at the fire. 

He could see that her lips trembled, and 
a sudden longing to take her in his arms 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


271 


and comfort her came over him, as he had 
done one short year ago in the Indian gar- 
den. But he did not — it was some time 
since he had done so. And there was this 
evening’s terrible barrier in between. 

“Do you know, Jack, we haven’t been 
married quite a year, and yet we aren’t very 
happy, are we? I’m afraid I have been 
terribly to blame. Jack. I wanted to tell 
you so long ago, but you didn’t — didn’t 
seem to care a bit. Then you began to see 
such a lot of that horrible woman, and I 
hated that, and I thought I hated you! 
People told me I ought to amuse myself, and 
that there were other men besides neglectful 
husbands — and Major Kennedy, he’s a great 
friend of yours, and he came so often to the 
house — and you never seemed to care. In- 
deed, I don’t believe you ever took the 
trouble to find out, and I was very miserable 
and silly! I daresay being miserable should 
have made me wise, but you were the high- 
est thing I loved, and still love. Jack, and 
you didn’t care!” She paused a moment, 
catching her breath, and he grew white in a 
sudden agony of fear and pain. 

He had lived with this woman — she was 


272 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

his wife! He had married her a young, 
untried girl, and he had given her the key 
to all the dangers, and left her to face them 
alone. He dared not interrupt her, and so 
he waited, fearing each heavy, silent mo- 
ment as it passed. 

“ I wanted love, and he — he said he loved 
me. Jack! Ah! don’t speak! I was a fool 
and worse! but indeed I didn’t under- 
stand, and then — Muriel came,” — he drew 
in a deep breath, it might have been a 
sob of relief, — “and I tried to be different. 
Do you remember that night, two weeks 
ago, when you came in late and I kissed 
you, and you — ^laughed at me? Oh, Jack, 
how it hurt me! And then the next day 
he told me he would sell his soul for a kiss. 
Perhaps he didn’t mean anything, but you 
had gone to tea with Edith le Mentier, and 
I — let him. Jack!” He started forward, 
but she stopped him by a gesture. “ Wait 
till I finish, please,” she said. “Then I 
understood, and I sent him away, and cried 
all the afternoon. He wanted me to run 
away with him, and I was weak and 
frightened. I don’t know what I should 
have done if it hadn’t been for Muriel. 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 273 

You said I wasn’t truthful, so I want to be 
quite truthful now. I think if it hadn’t 
been for Muriel I should have gone. I 
wanted to hurt your pride if I couldn’t win 
your love; but Muriel stood by me, and 
wouldn’t let me go. She told me what to 
say to Major Kennedy. I’m not sure — but 
I believe she said something to him herself 
— anyway he went off somewhere at once. 
Oh, Jack, can’t you love me! can you ever 
be good to me again?” She lifted up her 
arms towards him, with the tears rolling 
down her cheeks. She was weak and irre- 
solute, vain and foolish, but he had done 
nothing to help her, yet she had gone 
through what had defeated him, and she 
was asking him whether he could forgive 
her! “I loved you. Jack,” she cried pite- 
ously; '‘I loved you all the time! Audit’s 
all over now for ever and ever ! ” The color 
rushed into her face and a new look came 
into her eyes — a look he did not under- 
stand. 

“ Why do you say it’s all over? ” he asked 
dully. “It may happen again.” 

“It will never come again,” she said, “be- 
cause — oh, Jack, I — I’m afraid, but I’m 


274 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

very glad too — it’s always so wonderful, and 
don’t you understand?” she covered her 
face with her hands, ‘‘I am going to be — 
the mother of your child!” At last it 
came to him, and for ever killed the irre- 
sponsibility of love’s selfishness. He took 
her now in his arms, he dared to do so, 
because now for him too the other was all 
over. She was helpless and clinging, she 
was his wife, and she was going into the 
valley of the shadow of death because 
she loved him. ‘^Oh, Jack, will you for- 
give? ” 

“Forgive you!” he cried, and tried to ex- 
plain to her how sorry he was, how much to 
blame, and how glad at last that they both 
of them understood, and how now it would 
all be different — so wonderfully different! 
But he did not tell her about Edith le 
Mentier. 

When she was safe in bed he wrote to the 
other woman, and hurt her very bitterly. 
The other woman, for all her faults, is very 
often brave, and Edith le Mentier suffered 
horribly; but she bore the great defeat, and 
was only a very little irritable the next 
morning. She did not sing Gounod’s 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 275 

song again; she said it was scarcely 
suitable. 

She always shrugged her shoulders and 
smiled when people mentioned Jack’s wife, 
and when they spoke of him she said ‘‘Poor 
fellow!” 

Who could tell that those were the figures 
of the sum called tragedy? Not the tragedy 
of the true-hearted who see through pain 
the vista of glory, but that inordinate agony 
which because it is so solely selfish eats into 
the heart that bears it, and for the vista 
substitutes a cul-de-sac. 

Jack and Gladys went to his estate in the 
country, where they spent some bad hours, 
and learned lessons of tolerance. It was, 
fortunately for Jack, the hunting season, 
and he rode hard to hounds. Gladys culti- 
vated the country people, read a great deal, 
and took an intelligent interest in Jack’s 
“runs.” At the end of the time they could 
live together quite comfortably, and avoided 
the unendurable with the ready forbearance 
of quite long married people. The knowing 
what to avoid is the key to most things, 
though it is often difficult to turn. 

A son was born to them, making Jack 


276 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

a proud father, and consequently a good 
husband. And Gladys found a life more 
engrossing than her own. She wrote and 
asked Muriel to stand godmother. 


CHAPTER XXXVIII 

“Life’s business being just the terrible choice.” 

There was trouble at Shindies Alley, not 
that there was anything unusual in that! 
For it was a place where trouble was the 
commonplace, and what the comfortable 
call tragedy almost a nursery rule. Only 
the trouble was worse than usual, amount- 
ing to the prospect of the police and a pos- 
sible murder case in the papers. “Rough 
Tom” being not quite so drunk as usual had 
beaten his wife nearly to death, a thing he 
had done before, but never quite so effectu- 
ally. It was better, the neighbors thought, 
to send a boy to the doctor’s, he and the 
lady at the club had been there before. 
This time the doctor arrived first. “Rough 
Tom” was off, no one of course knew where. 
All denied any knowledge of him, though 
exultingly willing to report any unneces- 
sary and loathsome details of the row. 

277 


278 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

The doctor dismissed the crowd curtly. 
They vanished silently into dark holes and 
corners. 

It was a cold night. The children sharing 
the den where their mother lay cursing and 
groaning cried dismally. They also cried 
loudly; it seemed worth while with both a 
row and a doctor. Geoff despatched them 
to a neighbor’s across the passage, and 
examined the woman by a guttering candle. 
She swore horribly, but she was too much 
engrossed with pain to be afraid; she was 
also anxious to explain that it was not her 
man’s fault but another woman’s, whom she 
called by a variety of names. She was too 
ill to be moved, and the doctor began with 
steady gentleness to dress the wounds. He 
needed a nurse, but he had no time to send 
for one. The case was urgent. We fight 
as earnestly for the most apparently useless 
lives as for the dearest, yet we cannot 
believe that God has as high a respect 
for the ultimate fate of the crushed soul’s 
life as we have to keep breath in a ruined 
body. 

It was the doctor’s profession, but it was 
that least of all that made him fight for her. 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 279 

He looked up and saw Muriel at the door. 
He felt intensely angry that she should 
know such a place existed. 

“I should advise you to go away/’ he said 
coldly. Muriel looked up for a moment, 
simply astonished, then she advanced to- 
wards him and the heap of rags. 

am going to help you,” she said. 

‘‘You are only in the way,” he replied 
grimly, not raising his eyes from the patient. 
“I want a nurse, not — a young lady.” The 
last words might have been an insult. She 
flushed angrily. 

“I can hold her for you,” she said; “I 
am not afraid.” It was necessary to have 
some help. 

“You will faint?” he questioned in- 
credulously. 

“No, Dr. Grant, I shall not!” said Muriel. 
He knew by her tone that she was very 
angry. 

“Well, then, don’t waste any more time,” 
was his only reply. 

In another moment she was down on her 
knees, obeying short, imperious orders. Dr. 
Grant never left much to the initiative of his 
nurses. The sight was almost more repul- 


280 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


sive than she could bear. She wanted to 
cover her face with her hands instead of us- 
ing them on the awful crushed form. She 
wanted to scream at the woman’s pain, to 
rage at the doctor’s cruelty, to fly from this 
whole world of constant reiterated woe; but 
she was far too angry even to let her hands 
tremble. At last she felt that her strength 
was going; she turned white, cold perspira- 
tion stood on her forehead. The doctor 
glanced at her sharply, and then — he 
laughed. The hot blood rushed to her 
heart; she grew rigid now, but not with fear; 
the noise in her ears ceased. She heard 
every word he said, anticipated every need, 
and had not reached the limit of her strength 
when the doctor released her. 

‘‘The morphia will keep her quiet till 
morning,” he said. “You’d better go 
home.” 

“ Will she live? ” she asked him. 

“Unfortunately — yes,” said Geoff. “Wo- 
men of that sort generally do — to be beaten 
again!” They went in silence to the door. 
Muriel was quite certain now that she dis- 
liked him. 

Geoff left a few parting directions to a 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 281 

reluctant, but almost entirely sober, neigh- 
bor. When they were in the street Muriel 
waited for him to explain; but he did not 
explain. It was a habit of his not to, 
possibly owing to his professional desire to 
steer clear of the definite. Muriel was too 
astonished, hurt and indignant to remain 
silent for long. She stopped. 

‘‘Good-night, Dr. Grant,” she said with 
an icy formality. The doctor’s eyes twin- 
kled. 

“What’s the matter?” he asked. She 
looked at him with a searching angry glance. 

“Your manner has not pleased me to- 
night,” she replied quietly; “I should pre- 
fer to return alone.” 

“I am sorry if I have displeased you. 
Miss Dallerton,” said Geoff with his mouth 
ominously twitching. Was it imaginable 
that she couldn’t see he wanted to kiss 
her? As she stood there, aggrieved, defiant, 
serious, her eyes like two points of light 
under her heavy hair, the bright color in her 
cheeks, the whole daring absurdity of her 
seriously facing life there in a horrible alley 
instead of the delicate luxury of a West-End 
drawing-room, he could have laughed at the 


282 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

inappropriateness of it. ‘‘It’s too cold for 
an apology,” he ventured more gravely. “I 
will see you about this later, if I may. 
Please let me see you home first.” 

She did not want to seem girhshly tem- 
pestuous, so she assented to his last request, 
but in bitter silence walked with him to the 
club. She did not give him her hand as he 
said “Good-night.” She wanted tremen- 
dously to refuse to allow him to call, to cut 
short their acquaintance, to never set eyes 
on him again. But she felt an absurd desire 
to cry brought on by the physical strain of 
the past two hours, so that she said nothing. 

Yet when she was in her room she would 
not cry. She forced the tears back, and 
remembered how he had laughed at her! 
The utter careless brutality of his whole 
behavior! And Cynthia could be so foolish 
as to imagine he cared for her! She herself 
had never for an instant dreamed it — ^she 
refused to admit it — it was impossible! It 
never occurred to her in the least that Geoff 
had been trying to rouse her courage 
through opposition, and to control his own 
too tender feelings by a mask of rudeness. 
Even if it had occurred to her she would 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 283 

probably have been just as angry, for what 
she was really indignant with was his 
strength and her weakness, and she could 
find no excuses for that. 


CHAPTER XXXIX 


“The best 

Impart the gift of seeing to the rest/' 

The studio lamps made cheerful colors in 
the right places, and Cynthia feeling the 
world as far as she was concerned in her 
lap, in the shape of a baby boy, round and 
fair with undecided features, felt that life 
had brought its own rewards, richly, won- 
derfully. She was almost afraid, she was so 
happy, with the fear of those who have gone 
into the darkness, and dreamt only of the 
light. Leslie Damores was painting her 
again, but the face was different. It was 
called “Motherhood,” and it told of the 
great need satisfied. Muriel was coming in 
to see the picture. The studio door opened 
and a woman come into the room; she was 
little, and French, and beautifully dressed. 
She advanced towards Cynthia with a little 
cry; then she laughed. 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 285 

“ Why, Cynthia, you’ve got a baby! I 
told them to let me come right up. I was 
an old friend, and I just had to come. Oh, 
there’s your husband!” She turned with 
another rapid laugh towards Leslie. He was 
looking bravely at his wife, whose face was 
strained and anxious; the woman seemed 
evidently nervous too. 

“ Well, you’re very silent you two,’’ she 
cried defiantly. 

'‘What do you want?” said Cynthia 
coldly. “ I thought you had gone away.”, 

“And so I did, and I’ve come back. 
Clifton died, and I married again. Did you 
know it? — an American too — and he didn’t 
give me any peace till I promised to get 
Launcelot. We Americans seem to have 
such horrid consciences.’’ 

“You never had, had you? ” said Cynthia 
quietly. The woman looked angry, then 
she laughed. 

“Well, I guess you’re about right — I 
never had much trouble that way; but 
when Sam Hicks wanted Launcelot I felt it 
would be right sweet to take him back with 
us to America, and I had the greatest time 
finding your address. You ’re fixed up real 


286 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

genteel, Mr. Damores; I should think you 
must have made painting pay. And is 
that Cynthia’s picture? How perfectly 
lovely!” 

“Mrs. Hicks,” said Cynthia slowly — “I 
think I understood you to say that was 
your husband’s name — when you let me 
take Launcelot three years ago I had no 
idea you would ever claim him again. He 
has just gone to school here in England. He 

is very happy ” Cynthia’s voice broke. 

“Oh, why do you want him again?” she 
cried — “it’s cruel.” 

“ I am going to have my boy,” said Mrs. 

Hicks raising her voice. “I tell you ” 

“A moment,” Leslie Damores broke in. 
“ You were last heard of running away with 
a French Count. Do you think you are a 
fit person to take care of a child? ” 

“ Why, how dare you? ” she cried, facing 
him with frightened rage; “I declare I 
never heard the like! I’ll have you up for 
libel, Mr. Leslie Damores; and, as for you, 

Mrs. Leslie Damores ” 

“ I am speaking for my wife, and you may 
speak to me,” said Leslie, “otherwise you 
leave the room.” Mrs. Hicks began to cry. 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 287 

“And to think that I am respectably 
married and everything. But that’s what 
it is, a poor woman must always suffer 
for her mistakes, while as for you — you can 
have as many of them as you like, and 
you’re none the worse for them!” She 
stopped again; their silence checked her, 
she felt hushed by their quiet contempt; and 
yet, angrier than ever, “I’m the boy’s 
mother,” she said turning to Cynthia; “how 
would you like to have your child taken 
from you ? ” Cynthia looked helplessly at 
her husband; the woman had touched the 
right plea; she was the boy’s mother. 

“ You shall see Launcelot to-morrow, Mrs. 
Hicks,” said Leslie, “and by that time I 
shall have inquired into your case, and if 
your assertions are true as to your husband 
and his means of support we will consider 
the matter. Meanwhile there is nothing 
more to be said, and if you will allow me 
I will take you downstairs.” 

Mrs. Hicks looked spitefully at Cynthia, 
but Leslie’s face checked her — the baby had 
begun to cry. She flung up her head and 
left the room. The baby had gone, and 
Cynthia was crying alone in the studio 


288 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

when he came back. He took her in his 
arms. 

“Oh, Leslie,” she moaned, “he meant 
everything to us, dear little fellow. Do you 
remember he made me good again, and he 
found you for me? Leslie, I can’t let him 
go back to her. She left him so cruelly. 
He is mine, darling — tell me I needn’t let 
him go — he’s such a delicate little fellow. 
Oh, I can’t ! I can’t ! ” He stroked her hair ; 
she had never cried since her marriage. 

“Dearest, we will leave it to him. She 
is his mother — we mustn’t forget that. She 
has some claim on him, after all.” 

“You could threaten to tell her husband 
about — about the Count,” she whispered. 

“Oh, no, no, no,” said Leslie gently. 

“I didn’t mean it, dear — I didn’t mean 
it,” she sobbed afresh. 

“I will go and bring Launcelot,” he said. 

“Isn’t that baby crying?” It was not 
baby crying, but she turned and fled up- 
stairs. 

“After all,” said Leslie thoughtfully, 
“she’s not Launcelot’s mother.’’ Then he 
went out. 

Muriel came in to find the studio empty 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 289 

of everything but the great picture of 
‘‘ Motherhood.” The woman holding Para- 
dise in her arms stung her to the quick with 
her expression of inelfable content. She 
was not looking at the child in her arms. 
She was holding it too close to need the 
reassurance of a glance; she was looking 
across the child with all the loves in her 
eyes, steady and beautiful and bright, eyes 
too happy to smile. Muriel knew suddenly 
that it was the way Cynthia looked at her 
husband. She did not wish to see them 
then, so slowly she let the curtain down 
before the picture and crept softly out of 
the room. But the woman’s eyes followed 
her home, and when she was in the club and 
back in her room she saw them still. They 
seemed to have a quiet wonder in them that 
any woman could ever dream that there was 
any other happiness than that. 

“Something is surely wrong when one 
begins to count up one’s blessings,” said 
Muriel. “My life is full — full of everything 
I want!” But as she looked defiantly in 
the glass she saw she had not got the 
woman’s look in her eyes. 

Launcelot and Leshe walked hand in hand 


290 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


very solemnly home through the streets of 
London. Leslie had been trying to explain. 
Launcelot’s little face was very white, but 
he would not cry. 

“ Do you think — do you think I ought to 
leave you and Lady Beautiful and — and 
baby?’' he asked wistfully. 

‘‘She is your mother, dear boy, and she 
wants you very much,” said Leslie reproach- 
ing himself for the coldness in his voice. 

‘‘And are mothers everything?” 

“Mothers are a very great deal, old 
fellow. You see you belong to them — 
you’re their very own.” 

“Yes, I suppose so,” said the little fellow 
wearily. “Baby is Lady Beautiful’s very 
own, and so are you, but I’m not to be any 
more.” There was a quiver in his voice. 
Leslie pressed his little hand, he felt too 
much to speak. “My mother didn’t want 
me very much for her very own before, did 
she? You see she gave me to Lady 
Beautiful.” 

“She wants you now,” said Damores 
hoarsely. They were very near home. 

“ I — I don’t think I want her very much, 
you know,” said Launcelot wistfully. “ But 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 291 

they didn’t give me any choice, did they, 
when they made me belong to her? ” 

‘‘I think they thought she needed you; 
you see she has no one else but a new 
husband,” Leslie explained. 

‘‘Then I must go,” said Launcelot as 
Leslie opened the door, “because you see a 
new husband can’t be much, and a boy who 
belongs to you must mean more, I should 
think.” 

“I am quite sure that a boy who belongs 
to you means much more,” said Leslie kiss- 
ing him. 

So it was all settled before Launcelot 
ever saw Lady Beautiful. They looked a 
little nervously at each other as the door 
opened and they saw her sitting by the fire. 
She sprang up with a little sudden cry and 
her arms held out to him. He had been to 
school and knew that fellows never cry, but 
he had only just learnt it — and he forgot. 
Leslie watched them for a moment sobbing 
in each other’s arms. The tenderness and 
pity from her new rich store made her seem 
more wonderful than ever to him. His 
heart ached at their grief, but the woman’s 
assertions were true — the child must go. 


292 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

The inevitable had to him a consolation. He 
went and smoked hard in the studio. To 
Cynthia it was a cage, and she struggled in 
vain against the bars, crying over Launce- 
lot as he slept at last, with troubled 
breathing from his late sobs. But when 
the baby cried she went to it again. The 
next morning Mrs. Hicks appeared. She was 
nervously anxious to please. She called 
Launcelot by all the affectionate names 
she could think of, but he only looked at 
her with half-frightened, wondering eyes. 

‘'And now Launcelot will come with 
mother?” she asked at last. He looked 
wistfully back at Cynthia and her husband, 
his heart breaking. Parting with the baby 
had been gone through upstairs. He had 
cried till he could cry no more, so he only 
looked at them. 

“I would rather belong to you, Lady 
Beautiful,” he whispered, as she put her 
arms about him, ‘‘much, much r!ather be- 
long to you.” 

She watched him walk with his mother 
down the street, her face pressed to the 
panes. When he reached the comer he 
turned and waved back to her. His 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 293 

mother gave his arm a little pull, and he 
did not turn again. It was the last time 
Cynthia ever saw him. He went out of 
her life as suddenly and strangely as he 
had entered it; but in the meantime the 
broken thread had been joined together 
again, the dreams she had resolutely crushed 
had blossomed in a garden of reality, and 
the great power of love had filled up what 
had been the emptiness and desolation of 
her soul. 


CHAPTER XL 

'^How Love is the only good in the world/’ 

‘‘ Now I have come to make my apologies, 
Miss Dallerton,” said the doctor in a cheery 
voice. 

It was a cold day, and he looked aggres- 
sively warm and reassuring. He never 
needed to be made allowances for, and 
Muriel could never quite forgive him that. 
She had made so many allowances for Jack. 

“I’m afraid you thought me a little short 
with you the other day — in fact, you were 
so displeased you had half a mind to walk 
through Stepney by yourself — now, hadn’t 
you? ” he asked smiling. 

“You were very rude to me the other 
day. Dr. Grant, and though you seem to 
take my forgiveness for granted, you have 
not yet given me any explanation.” The 
doctor laughed, but his eyes grew colder. 

294 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 295 

'‘Well!” he said, "so you won’t forgive 
me without?” Muriel frowned. 

"If you have a reason I should like to 
hear it,” she suggested. 

The doctor walked once or twice up and 
down the room. She watched him unwill- 
ingly; he had the most splendid shoulders; 
she did not think he could be more than 
thirty-six. Then he stopped before her chair 
and looked at her very gravely. He was so 
tall that she felt at a disadvantage; some 
instinct made her rise too, and they stood 
there face to face, their eyes doing battle. 
She looked away at last. 

" Well? ” she questioned. She was con- 
scious that her breath was coming quickly, 
and she thanked Heaven she didn’t blush 
easily. 

"I was short to you,” said the doctor 
deliberately, "because it seemed to me the 
only way of getting help from you. If I 
hadn’t made you thoroughly angry you 
would probably have fainted.” 

"I should not have fainted,” she said, 
her eyes flashing fiercely. She knew she 
was not speaking the truth, but it was too 
desperately difficult. If she submitted in 


296 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

one thing, where would they stop? She 
was beginning to lose her self-control and 
her sense of proportion at the same time. 
It is dangerous for a man to lose both, 
but it is fatal to a woman to lose 
either. 

“There was another reason,’’ said the 
doctor slowly. Muriel was silent. “Do 
you want to hear it? ” 

“If ” she began icily. “Yes, I may 

as well hear it,” she finished in confusion. 
She did not want him to think she cared 
enough to be angry. 

“I love you!’’ he said with the same 
quiet deliberation and a pause between 
each word, “and it was a little difficult to 
let you help in any other way.” 

The room grew suddenly tense; each 
breath was a terrible sword which shook the 
universe; there seemed an awful conspiracy 
in the room to win some concession; the 
very chairs and table seemed to wait and 
listen. A hand-organ in the street clanged 
them back into facts again. The doctor, 
still looking at her,'picked up a paper-knife; 
Muriel sank back into the chair. There 
seemed nothing left in the world to say, 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 297 

but she felt as if there might be if he would 
only keep still a moment. 

“I am very sorry,” she said at last, and 
then she could have bitten her tongue out, 
it sounded so commonplace. She noticed 
that he was looking suddenly very tired, but 
he smiled with grave eyes. 

‘'I knew you would be,” he said, ‘‘and I 
must go and make some calls. But you do 
understand now, don’t you?” 

“I suppose I do,” said Muriel; ‘‘but are 
you going away? ’’ He almost laughed at 
her thoughtlessness. 

“Well! yes. Miss Dallerton,’’ he said; “I 
think I must go now.” 

Muriel rose to her feet, and a great wave 
of desolation swept over her. She stood 
there alone, and before her eyes passed 
the vision of those who had left her — ^Alec 
— Jack — Cynthia — her uncle. All with 
their different lives, their different circles. 
And now he was going, the friend who 
had made life and her work, her youth 
and her beauty so excellently well worth 
while — with whom she had argued, quar- 
relled and discussed — and he was leaving 
her. All of a sudden she knew she could 


298 LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 

not bear it — that she, too, needed help and 
comfort and sympathy — that though one 
may give all and prosper, yet it is blessed to 
receive as well. And then he looked so 
tired. He was waiting for her to dismiss 
him, and he could not understand why she 
was keeping him. 

“I don’t want you to go,” said Muriel at 
last. ‘‘I’m sure I need you more — more 
than the other patients, only you must 
learn to ask questions and not to make 
assertions only if you want me to be a satis- 
factory case!” 

“What made you say that you were 
sorry? ” he asked her after a long, wonder- 
ful pause. 

“I was sorry,” she laughed at him, “that 
you didn’t tell me so before!” 

When Jack heard of her marriage he 
shrugged his shoulders. “ I always thought 
she would run amdk on some sort of a pro- 
fessional chap, but I rather thought it 
would be a parson,” he said, and thought 
how much better she might have done for 
herself if she had only known when she had 
a good thing. 


LIFE, THE INTERPRETER 


299 


‘‘I thought she was cut out for an old 
maid,” Edith le Mentier told her friends; 
“but those sort of women generally marry 
and have fourteen children.” 

It mattered very little to Muriel what was 
said. She looked at things now with the 
eyes of the woman in Damores’ picture; and 
she and Geoff having found so much for 
themselves were the more anxious to give 
their sunshine to the world. They believed 
that the purposes of love, in human and 
material things, were the channels through 
which the spirit finds soaring room — ^never 
apart from earth, but ever nearer heaven. 

Their one need left was to join the gospel 
of example, which is simply loving every- 
thing for love’s sake, whether it visibly love 
back or no. To acquaintances they seemed 
to have positively left the world, but they 
themselves knew that they had found the 
true one. 


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